UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   SAN  DIEGO 


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3  1822  01700  2627 


UN|VERSIJY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 


I         - .Illlllllilllllliili    „,    n„ i.M.lli, 

L     3  1822  01700  2627 


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LITTLE  MASTERPIECES   OF   SCIENCE 


Little 

Masterpieces 

of 

Science 

Edited 

by    George    lies 

MIND 

By 

John  Fiske 
James  Sully 
Francis  Galton 
William  H.  Hu 

Oliver  W.  Holmes 
Henry  Maudsley 
William  B.  Carpenter 
dson     Thomas  H.  Huxley 

e^ 

NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE    &    COMPANY 
1                                        1902 

Cnpyright,  IQOO,  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

Copyright,  igoi,  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co. 

Copyright,  1895,  by  D.  Applcton  &  Co. 


PREFACE 

The  study  of  mind  was  advanced  as  remarkably 
during  the  nineteenth  century  as  any  of  its  sister 
sciences.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  observation  grew 
keener,  new  instrumental  tests  were  adopted, 
and  interpretation  became  more  sagacious.  A 
fact  as  commonplace  as  the  length  of  human 
babyhood,  when  it  came  under  the  eye  of  John 
Fiske,  went  far  to  explain  the  foundations  of  the 
family,  and  how  it  came  about  that  primitive 
man,  to  whom  much  was  given,  so  added  to  his 
gifts  that  at  last  the  gulf  betwixt  him  and  his 
next  of  kin  became  all  but  infinite.  Of  the  new 
study  of  children,  which  owes  a  weighty  debt  to 
Darwin  and  Preyer,  Professor  Sully  is  a  worthy 
exponent.  In  this  volume  he  has  something  to 
say  of  the  deepest  interest  to  parents,  to  all 
students  of  the  early  unfolding  of  human  faculty. 
In  the  inquiry'  of  Mr.  Galton  regarding  Tw^ns  we 
have  a  sterling  example  of  the  statistical  method. 
Who  shall  call  that  method  dry  and  unfruitful 
after  he  reads  what  it  brought  to  this  patient  and 
discerning  investigator  ? 

If  it  be  assumed  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
mind  that  has  not  been  in  the  senses,  it  becomes  a 
question  of  importance.  How  may  sight,  the 
noblest  of  the  senses,  come  to  its  best  estate  ? 
Has  it  been  affected  for  good  or  harm  by  civilized 
v 


Preface 

life  ?  This  question  is  discussed  with  shrewd 
humour  by  Mr.  Hudson  in  his  chapter  on  the 
sight  of  savages.  One  of  the  most  promising 
fields  of  research  directs  its  quest  to  the  riches 
commonly  hid  beneath  the  surface  of  the  mental 
sea.  It  seems  probable  that  before  the  close  of 
the  twentieth  century  means  may  be  discovered 
of  sounding  the  depths  of  unconscious  and  sub- 
conscious being,  means  comparable  with  the 
powers  of  exploration  which  the  X-ray  has  be- 
stowed upon  the  physicist.  To  this  alluring 
field  of  inquiry  no  better  introduction  can  be 
given  than  Dr.  Holmes  affords  us  in  this  volume. 
Dr.  Maudsley's  chapter  on  Memory  treats  a 
faculty  which  lies  at  the  base  of  all  mental  wealth, 
the  talent  for  accumulation,  the  ability  to  com- 
mand at  will  every  item  of  the  mind's  crowded 
treasure-house.  Whether  remembered  or  for- 
gotten, every  impression  stamped  upon  a  sound, 
capable  brain,  goes  to  build  up  and  refine  the 
judgment.  This  power,  under  the  name  of  Com- 
mon Sense,  is  treated  by  Dr.  Carpenter  with  the 
fulness  of  suggestion  which  always  marked  that 
veteran  thinker. 

The  main  value  of  the  study  of  the  mind  is 
after  all,  to  direct  the  development  of  mind.  No 
spokesman  of  science  ever  urged  the  reform  of 
education  with  so  much  force  as  Huxley.  Two 
of  his  pleas  are  here  presented;  they  have  lost 
little  of  their  point  with  the  flight  of  years.  His 
argument  for  laboratory  practice  has,  happily, 
borne  abundant  fruit  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlan- 


Preface 

tic.  Manual  training,  the  elemental^'  form  of 
that  practice,  is  now  taught  in  thousands  of  our 
public  schools,  and  should  be  freely  offered  in  all. 
It  means  putting  boys  and  girls  in  full  possession 
of  themselves,  with  a  profound  impetus  to  intel- 
ligence when  a  knowledge  of  things  replaces  the 
repetition  of  symbols. 

The  reader  may  wish  to  extend  his  survey  of 
the  science  of  mind  beyond  the  books  laid  under 
contribution  in  this  volume.  No  better  author 
can  be  recommended  than  Professor  William 
James,  of  Har\^ard  University.  His  "Talks  to 
Teachers  on  Psycholog>^"  is  as  instructive  and 
delightful  to  the  ordinary  reader  as  to  the  audi- 
ence for  which  it  was  specially  written.  Pro- 
fessor James's  "Principles  of  Psycholog>%"  in 
two  volumes,  and  "Briefer  Course  in  Psychol- 
ogy," in  one  volume,  are  for  systematic  study. 
All  three  works  are  published  by  Henrv^  Holt  & 
Co.,  New  York. 

George  Iles. 


CONTENTS 

FISKE,  JOHN 

The   Part    Played   by   Infancy   in  the 
Evolution  of  ^Ian. 

"Wallace  pointed  out  that  when  once  the  intelligence 
of  man  became  dominant,  his  body  would  change  but 
little.  Wallace  brought  up  a  baby  orang-outang 
which  had  a  period  of  infantile  helplessness  much 
longer  than  that  of  a  lamb  or  a  calf.  The  still  longer 
infancy  of  the  human  babe  was  most  significant  to 
John  Fiske.  It  showed  that  the  highest  ner\-ous 
development  is  the  slowest.  The  prolongation  of 
infancy  lengthens  the  period  of  maternal  aflfection, 
tends  to  keep  parents  and  children  together,  and  thus 
the  institution  of  the  family  is  founded.  Progress 
has  been  in  the  direction  of  bringing  out  the  higher 
spiritual  attributes  of  man:  hence  the  elemental  truth 
of  religion 3 

SULLY,  JAMES 

The  New  Study  of  Children. 

Man  has  the  child  always  with  him.  The  study  of 
the  child  is  now  scientific.  The  unfoldings  of  an  infant 
mind  throw  light  on  the  development  of  the  human 
race.  Child-study  is  necessary--  if  education  is  to  be 
rightly  directed.  Children  often  reticent:  sometimes 
ask  strange  questions.  To  understand  children,  love 
and  knowledge  are  required.  Obser\,-ation,  experiment 
and  their  records.  Indi\'idual  cases  should  be  com- 
pared  on   a  large    scale ax 

ix 


Contents 

GALTON,  FRANCIS 

Twins,  Their  History  as  a  Criterion 
OF  THE  Relative  Powers  of  Nature 
AND  Nurture. 

Twins  alike  by  nature  may  as  adults  be  compared  to 
note  how  far  diversity  of  circumstance  has  been  influen- 
tial. Twins  unlike  by  nature  and  educated  alike 
show  how  far  nurture  compares  with  inherited  qualities 
as  determining  character.  Extraordinary  cases  of 
resemblance:  twins  widely  separated  develop  the  same 
disease  or  mania  at  the  same  time.  Only  illness  or 
accident  causes  difference  between  twins  aUke  in  early 
life.  Twins  originally  unlike  so  remain,  although 
educated  alike.  Nature  vastly  stronger  than  nurture 
in  the  making  of  man S3 

HUDSON,  WILLIAM  H. 
Sight   in   Savages. 

Keen  observation  of  cards  by  a  player  whose  vision 
otherwise  was  ordinary.  We  see  what  we  look  for. 
Sight  in  savages  is  trained  to  detect  particular  objects, 
— men,  beasts  and  birds  of  prey,  reptiles,  game  and 
the  like.  Sight  in  civilized  man  is  just  as  sharp,  but 
is  directed  to  different  objects,  the  letters  of  a  printed 
page,  for  example 79 

HOLMES,  OLIVER  W. 

Mechanism  in  Thought  and  Morals. 

Do  we  ever  think  without  knowing  that  we  are  thinking  ? 
Leibnitz  long  ago  said  yes.  We  remember  a  name 
by  ceasing  the  conscious  search  for  it.  One  goes  to 
sleep  with  a  problem  in  mind,  and  awakens  with  the 
solution  clear.  The  man  of  genius  is  inspired  he 
X 


Contents 


knows  not  how:  the  deepest  things  are  not  in  the  con- 
sciousness. How  Bums  composed  his  poems.  An 
idea  planted  in  a  thinker's  mind  will  grow  when  he  is 
least    conscious    of    growth 95 

MAUDSLEY,  HENRY 
Memory. 

Unless  the  mind  retains  impressions  and  can  recall 
them,  no  development  is  possible.  Acts  at  first  difficult 
become  easy  because  nerves  and  muscles  remember. 
Attention  is  the  mother  of  memory.  The  more  various 
and  intimate  the  association  of  ideas  the  better.      .      115 

CARPENTER,  WILLIAM  B. 
Common  Sense. 

Walking  and  other  common  movements  of  the  body 
become  all  but  automatic.  In  much  the  same  way 
mental  experiences  become  organized  into  judgments 
which  are  largely  or  wholly  true.  Judgment  in  mathe- 
matics or  other  sciences  demands  special  training. 
Grammar  is  often  unconsciously  acquired.  The  intui- 
tions of  the  practised  detective.  The  desire  to  do 
right  strengthens  the  intellect.  A  -wise  man  trusts  to 
the  spontaneities  of  his  mind,  just  as  a  rider  may  trust 
his  horse  to  find  its  way  home.  The  human  race, 
like  the  individual  man,  grows  in  common  sense,  aban- 
dons absurd  practices  and  beliefs 131 

HUXLEY,  THOMAS  H. 
A  Liberal  Education. 

If  we  are  to  win  the   game   of    life  we  must  understand 
and  obey  its  rules.     No  man  wholly  uneducated.     A 
liberal  education  makes  the  most  of  body,  mind  and 
xi 


Contents 


heart.  Education  to  the  poor  is  of  supreme  impor- 
tance: reading  and  writing  are  merely  the  means  of 
education.  The  classics  should  be  taught  in  a  scientific 
way.  Thorough  knowledge  of  the  earth  as  a  centre 
from  which  study  may  proceed.  Literature  and  his- 
tory are  indispensable.     .. 151 

HUXLEY,  THOMAS  H. 
Science  and  Culture. 

The  themes  of  classical  education  are  less  important 
than  those  of  science.  For  culture  an  exclusively 
scientific  education  is  at  least  as  effectual  as  an  ex- 
clusively literary  education.  New  knowledge  has 
so  much  increased  in  modem  times  as  to  sway  daily 
life.  The  scientific  method  is  now  recognized  as  the 
one  mode  of  discerning  or  discovering  truth.  What 
in  the  past  men  said  about  things  is  vastly  less  to  the 
point  than  what  can  be  learned  now  at  first  hand. 
The  Greeks  looked  to  Nature,  let  us  also  look  to  Nature 
and  not  merely  repeat  what  the  Greeks  reported. 
Modem  languages,  especially  English,  as  means  of 
culture.  Science  cannot  be  applied  unless  its  prin- 
ciples are  understood.  The  mastery  of  these  principles 
is  culture.  Art  and  letters,  no  less  than  science,  are 
needed  for  a  well-rounded  mind.     ......      171 


MIND 


THE     PART    PLAYED    BY    INFANCY    IN 
THE   EVOLUTION  OF   MAN 

John  Fiske 

[John  Fiske  attained  distinction  in  three  distinct  fields, of 
letters:  as  a  historian,  as  a  scientific  interpreter  of  religion, 
as  an  expositor  of  the  philosophy  of  evolution.  In  this  last 
department  of  his  work  his  original  contribution  was  the 
theory  here  set  forth,  taken  from  a  chapter  in  "A  Century 
of  Science  and  Other  Essays,"  copyright  by  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston  and  New  York,  1900.  Mr.  Fiske  died 
in  190 1,  in  his  sixtieth  yearj 

TVhex  Danv'in's  "Origin  of  Species"  was  first 
published,  when  it  gave  us  that  wonderful  ex- 
planation of  the  origin  of  forms  of  life  from 
alHed  forms  through  the  operation  of  natural 
selection,  it  must  have  been  like  a  mental  illum- 
ination to  every  person  who  comprehended  it. 
But  after  all  it  left  a  great  many  questions  un- 
explained, as  was  natural.  It  accounted  for  the 
phenomena  of  organic  development  in  general 
with  wonderful  success,  but  it  must  have  left 
a  great  many  minds  with  the  feeling:  If  man 
has  been  produced  in  this  way,  if  the  mere 
operation  of  natural  selection  has  produced 
the  human  race,  wherein  is  the  human 
race  anyway  essentially  different  from  lower 
races?  Is  not  man  really  dethroned,  taken 
down  from  that  exceptional  position  in  which 
we  have  been  accustomed  to  place  him,  and 
3 


^lasterpieces    of   Science 

might  it  not  be  possible,  in  the  course  of  the 
future,  for  other  beings  to  come  upon  the  earth 
as  far  superior  to  man  as  man  is  superior  to  the 
fossiUzed  dragons  of  Jurassic  antiquity  ? 

Such  questions  used  to  be  asked,  and  when 
they  were  asked,  although  one  might  have  a  very 
strong  feeling  that  it  was  not  so,  at  the  same 
time  one  could  not  exactly  say  why.  One  could 
not  then  find  any  scientific  argument  for  objec- 
tions to  that  point  of  view.  But  with  the  further 
development  of  the  question  the  whole  subject 
began  gradually  to  wear  a  different  appearance; 
and  I  am  going  to  give  you  a  little  bit  of  auto- 
biography, because  I  think  it  may  be  of  some 
interest  in  this  connection.  I  am  going  to  men- 
tion two  or  three  of  the  successive  stages  which 
the  whole  question  took  in  my  own  mind  as 
one  thing  came  up  after  another,  and  how  from 
time  to  time  it  began  to  dawn  upon  me  that  I 
had  up  to  that  point  been  looking  at  the  problem 
from  not  exactly  the  right  point  of  view. 

When  Darwin's  "Descent  of  Man"  was  pub- 
lished in  1S71,  it  was  of  course  a  book  character- 
ized by  all  his  immense  learning,  his  wonderful 
fairness  of  spirit  and  fertility  of  suggestion. 
Still,  one  could  not  but  feel  that  it  did  not  solve 
the  question  of  the  origin  of  man.  There  was 
one  great  contrast  between  that  book  and  his 
"Origin  of  Species."  In  the  earHer  treatise  he 
undertook  to  point  out  a  vera  causa  [true  cause] 
of  the  origin  of  species,  and  he  did  it.  In  his 
"Descent  of  ^lan"  he  brought  together  a  great 
4 


The   Evolution    of    Man 

many  minor  generalizations  which  faciHtated 
the  understanding  of  man's  origin.  But  he  did 
not  come  at  all  near  to  solving  the  central  prob- 
lem, nor  did  he  anywhere  show  clearly  why  the 
natural  selection  might  not  have  gone  on  for- 
ever producing  one  set  of  beings  after  another 
distinguishable  chiefly  by  physical  differences. 
But  Darwin's  co-discoverer,  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace,  at  an  early  stage  in  his  researches, 
struck  out  a  most  brilliant  and  pregnant  sug- 
gestion. In  that  one  respect  Wallace  went 
further  than  ever  Darwin  did.  It  was  a  point 
of  which,  indeed,  Darwin  admitted  the  impor- 
tance. It  was  a  Doint  of  which  nobody  could 
fail  to  understand  the  importance,  that  in  the 
course  of  the  evolution  of  a  very  highly  organized 
animal,  if  there  came  a  point  at  which  it  was 
of  more  advantage  to  that  animal  to  have  var- 
iations in  his  intelligence  seized  upon  and  im- 
proved by  natural  selection  than  to  have  phy- 
sical changes  seized  upon,  then  natural  selection 
would  begin  working  almost  exclusively  upon 
that  creature's  intelligence,  and  he  would  develop 
in  intelligence  to  a  great  extent,  while  his  physical 
organism  would  change  but  slightly.  Now,  that 
of  course  applied  to  the  case  of  man,  who  is 
changed  physically  but  very  slightly  from  the 
apes,  while  he  has  traversed  intellectually 
such  a  stupendous  chasm. 

As 'soon  as  this  statement  was  made  by  Wal- 
lace, it  seemed  to  mc  to  open  up  an  entirely 
new    world     of    speculation.     There     was    this 
5 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

enormous  antiquity  of  man,  during  the  greater 
part  of  which  he  did  not  know  enough  to  make 
histor}'.  We  see  man  existing  here  on  the  earth, 
no  one  can  say  how  long,  but  surely  many  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  years,  yet  only  during  just 
the  last  little  fringe  of  four  or  five  thousand  years 
has  he  arrived  at  the  point  where  he  makes  history. 
Before  that,  something  was  going  on,  a  great 
many  things  were  going  on,  while  his  ancestors 
were  slowly  growing  up  to  that  point  of  intelli- 
gence where  it  began  to  make  itself  felt  in  the 
recording  of  events.  This  agrees  with  Wallace's 
suggestion  of  a  long  period  of  psychical  change, 
accompanied  by  slight  physical  change. 

Well,  in  the  spring  of  187 1,  when  Danvin's 
"Descent  of  Man"  came  out,  just  about  the 
same  time  I  happened  to  be  reading  Wallace's 
account  of  his  experiences  in  the  Malay  Archi- 
pelago, and  how  at  one  time  he  caught  a  female 
orang-outang  with  a  new-bom  baby,  and  the 
mother  died,  and  Wallace  brought  up  the  baby 
orang-outang  by  hand;  and  this  baby  orang- 
outang had  a  kind  of  infancy  which  was  a  great 
deal  longer  than  that  of  a  cow  or  a  sheep,  but 
it  was  nothing  compared  to  human  infancy  in 
length.  This  little  orang-outang  could  not 
get  up  and  march  around,  as  mammals  of  less 
intelligence  do,  when  he  was  first  bom,  or  within 
three  or  four  days;  but  after  three  or  four  weeks 
or  so  he  would  get  up,  and  begin  taking  hold  of 
something  and  pushing  it  around,  just  as  children 
push  a  chair;  and  he  went  through  a  period  of 
6 


The    Evolution   of    ]\Ian 

staring  at  his  hands,  as  human  babies  do,  and 
altogether  was  a  good  deal  slower  in  getting 
to  the  point  where  he  could  take  care  of  hims  !f. 
And  while  I  was  reading  of  that  I  thou^  t, 
Dear  me  !  if  there  is  any  one  thing  in  which  the 
human  race  is  signally  distinguished  from  othtx' 
mammals,  it  is  in  the  enormous  duration  of  their 
infancy;  but  it  is  a  point  that  I  do  not  recollect 
ever  seeing  any  naturalist  so  much  as  allude  to. 
It  happened  at  just  that  time  that  I  was  mak- 
ing researches  in  psychology  about  the  organiza- 
tion of  experiences,  the  way  in  which  conscious 
intelligent  action  can  pass  down  into  quasi- 
automatic  action,  the  generation  of  instincts, 
and  various  allied  questions;  and  I  thought,  Can 
it  be  that  the  increase  of  intelligence  in  an  animal, 
if  carried  beyond  a  certain  point,  must  neces- 
sarily result  in  prolongation  of  the  period  of 
infancy, — must  necessarily  result  in  the  birth 
of  the  mammal  at  a  less  developed  stage,  leaving 
something  to  be  done,  leaving  a  good  deal  to  ^:e 
done,  after  birth  ?  And  then  the  argument 
seemed  to  come  along  very  naturally,  that  for 
every  action  of  life,  every  adjustment  which  a 
creature  makes  in  life,  whether  a  muscyJar 
adjustment  or  an  intelligent  adjustment,  there 
has  got  to  be  some  registration  effected  in  the 
nervous  system,  some  line  of  transit  worn  for 
nervous  force  to  follow;  there  has  got  to  be  a 
connection  between  certain  nerve-centres  before 
the  thing  can  be  done,  whether  it  is  the  acts  of 
the  viscera  or  the  acts  of  the  limbs,  or  anything 
7 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

of  that  sort;  and  of  course  it  is  obvious  that  if 
the  creature  has  not  many  things  to  register 
in  his  nervous  system,  if  he  has  a  hfe  which  is 
very  simple,  consisting  of  few  actions  that  are 
performed  with  great  frequency,  that  animal 
becomes  almost  automatic  in  his  whole  life;  and 
all  the  nervous  connections  that  need  to  be 
made  to  enable  him  to  carry  on  life  get  made 
during  the  foetal  period  [the  period  before  birth] 
or  during  the  egg  period,  and  when  he  comes  to 
be  bom,  he  comes  all  ready  to  go  to  work.  As 
one  result  of  this,  he  does  not  learn  from  indi- 
vidual experience,  but  one  generation  is  like 
the  preceding  generations,  with  here  and  there 
some  slight  modifications.  But  when  you  get 
the  creature  that  has  arrived  at  the  point  where 
his  experience  has  become  varied,  he  has  got 
to  do  a  good  many  things,  and  there  is  more  or 
less  individuality  about  them;  and  rnany  of 
them  are  not  performed  with  the  same  minute- 
ness and  regularity,  so  that  there  does  not  begin 
to  be  that  automatism  within  the  period  during 
which  he  is  being  developed  and  his  form  is 
taking  on  its  outlines.  During  prenatal  life 
[before  birth]  there  is  not  time  enough  for  all 
these  nervous  registrations,  and  so  by  degrees 
it  comes  about  that  he  is  bom  with  his  nervous 
system  perfectly  capable  only  of  making  him 
breathe  and  digest  food, — of  making  him  do 
the  things  absolutely  requisite  for  supporting 
life;  instead  of  being  bom  with  a  certain  num- 
ber of  definite  developed   capacities,   he   has  a 


The   Evolution   of   ]\Ian 

number  of  potentialities  which  have  got  to  be 
roused  according  to  his  own  individual  experience. 
Pursuing  that  line  of  thought,  it  began  after  a 
while  to  seem  clear  to  me  that  the  infancy  of 
the  animal  in  a  very  undeveloped  condition, 
with  the  larger  part  of  his  faculties  in  potentiality 
rather  than  in  actuality,  was  a  direct  result  of 
the  increase  of  intelligence,  and  I  began  to  see 
that  now  we  have  two  steps:  first,  natural  selec- 
tion goes  on  increasing  the  intelligence;  and 
secondly,  when  the  intelligence  goes  far  enough, 
it  makes  a  longer  infancy,  a  creature  is  born  less 
developed,  and  therefore  there  comes  this  plastic 
period  during  which  he  is  more  teachable.  The 
capacity  for  progress  begins  to  come  in,  and 
you  begin  to  get  at  one  of  the  great  points  in 
which  man  is  distinguished  from  the  lower 
animals,  for  one  of  those  points  is  undoubtedly 
his  progressiveness;  and  I  think  that  any  one 
will  say,  wdth  very  little  hesitation,  that  if  it 
were  not  for  our  period  of  infancy  w^e  should  not 
be  progressive.  If  we  came  into  the  world  with 
our  capacities  all  cut  and  dried,  one  generation 
would  be  very  much  like  another. 

Then,  looking  around  to  see  what  are  the 
other  points  which  are  most  important  in  which 
man  differs  from  the  lower  animals,  there  comes 
that  matter  of  the  family.  The  family  has 
adumbrations  and  foreshadowings  among  the 
lower  animals,  but  in  general  it  may  be  said 
that  while  mammals  lower  than  man  are  gre- 
garious, in  man  have  become  established  those 
9 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

peculiar  relationships  which  constitute  what 
we  know  as  the  family ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
the  existence  of  helpless  infants  would  bring 
about  just  that  state  of  things.  The  necessity 
of  caring  for  the  infants  would  prolong  the 
period  of  maternal  affection,  and  would  tend 
to  keep  the  father  and  mother  and  children 
together,  but  it  would  tend  especially  to  keep 
the  mother  and  children  together.  This  business 
of  the  marital  relations  was  not  really  a  thing 
that  became  adjusted  in  the  primitive  ages  of 
man,  but  it  has  become  adjusted  in  the  course 
of  civilization.  Real  monogamy,  real  faithful- 
ness of  the  male  parent,  belongs  to  a  compar- 
atively advanced  stage;  but  in  the  earlier  stages 
the  knitting  together  of  permanent  relations 
between  mother  and  infant,  and  the  approxima- 
tion toward  steady  relations  on  the  part  of  the 
male  parent,  came  to  bring  about  the  family 
and  gradually  to  knit  those  organizations  which 
we  know  as  clans. 

Here  we  come  to  another  stage,  another  step 
for^\'ard.  The  instant  society  becomes  organ- 
ized in  clans,  natural  selection  cannot  let  these 
clans  be  broken  up  and  die  out, — the  clan  becomes 
the  chief  object  or  care  of  natural  selection, 
because,  if  you  destroy  it  you  retrograde  again, 
you  lose  all  you  have  gained;  consequently,  those 
clans  in  which  the  primeval  selfish  instincts  were 
so  modified  that  the  individual  conduct  would 
be  subordinated  to  some  extent  to  the  needs  to 
the  clan, — those  are  the  ones  which  would  prevail 
10 


The   Evolution   of   ]\Ian 

in  the  struggle  for  life.  In  this  way  you  gracl- 
ually  get  an  external  standard  to  which  man 
has  to  conform  his  conduct,  and  you  get  the 
germs  of  altruism  and  morality;  and  in  the  pro- 
longed affectionate  relation  between  the  mother 
and  the  infant  you  get  the  opportunity  for  that 
development  of  altruistic  feeling  which,  once 
started  in  those  relations,  comes  into  play  in 
the  more  general  relations,  and  makes  more 
feasible  and  more  workable  the  bonds  which 
keep  society  together,  and  enable  it  to  unite  on 
wider  and  wider  terms. 

So  it  seems  that  from  a  very  small  beginning 
we  are  reaching  a  very  considerable  result.  I 
had  got  these  facts  pretty  clearly  worked  out, 
and  carried  them  around  with  me  some  years, 
before  a  fresh  conclusion  came  over  me  one  day 
with  a  feeling  of  surprise.  In  the  old  days 
before  the  Copemican  astronomy  was  pro- 
mulgated, man  regarded  himself  as  the  centre  of 
the  universe.  He  used  to  entertain  theological 
systems  "W'hich  conformed  to  his  limited  knowl- 
edge of  nature.  The  universe  seemed  to  be 
made  for  his  uses,  the  earth  seemed  to  have 
been  fitted  up  for  his  dwelling-place,  he  occupied 
the  centre  of  creation,  the  sun  was  made  to  give 
him  light,  etc.  When  Copernicus  overthrew 
that  view,  the  effect  upon  theology  was  cer- 
tainly tremendous.  I  do  not  believe  that  justice 
has  ever  been  done  to  the  shock  that  it  gave  to 
man  when  he  was  made  to  realize  that  he  occu- 
pied a  kind  of  miserable  little  clod  of  dirt  in  the 
11 


Masterpieces   of    Science 

universe,  and  that  there  were  so  many  other 
worlds  greater  than  this.  It  was  one  of  the 
first  great  shocks  involved  in  the  change  from 
ancient  to  modern  scientific  views,  and  I  do  not 
doubt  it  was  responsible  for  a  great  deal  of  the 
pessimistic  philosophizing  that  came  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 

Now,  it  flashed  upon  me  a  dozen  years  or  so 
ago — after  thinking  about  this  manner  in  which 
man  originated — that  man  occupies  certainly 
just  as  exceptional  a  position  as  before,  if  he 
is  the  terminal  in  a  long  series  of  evolutionary 
events.  If  at  the  end  of  the  long  history  of 
evolution  comes  man,  if  this  whole  secular  pro- 
cess has  been  going  on  to  produce  this  supreme 
object,  it  does  not  much  matter  what  kind  of 
a  cosmical  body  he  lives  on.  He  is  put  back 
into  the  old  position  of  theological  importance, 
and  in  a  much  more  intelligent  way  than  in  the 
old  days  when  he  was  supposed  to  occupy  the 
centre  of  the  universe.  We  are  enabled  to  say 
that  while  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  evolutionary 
process  going  on  through  countless  ages  which 
we  know  nothing  about,  yet  in  the  one  case  where 
it  is  brought  home  to  us  we  spell  out  an  intelligible 
story,  and  we  do  find  things  working  along  up 
to  man  as  a  terminal  fact  in  the  whole  process. 
This  is  indeed  a  consistent  conclusion  from 
Wallace's  suggestion  that  natural  selection,  in 
working  toward  the  genesis  of  man,  began  to 
follow  a  new  path  and  make  psychical  changes 
instead  of  physical  changes.  Obviously,  here 
12 


The  Evolution  of    Man 

you  are  started  upon  a  new  chapter  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  universe.  It  is  no  longer  going  to 
be  necessary  to  shape  new  hmbs,  and  to  thicken 
the  skin  and  make  new  growths  of  hair,  when 
man  has  learned  how  to  build  a  fire,  when  he  can 
take  some  other  animal's  hide  and  make  it  into 
clothes.  You  have  got  to  a  new  state  of  things. 
After  I  had  put  together  all  these  additional 
circumstances  with  regard  to  the  origination  of 
human  society  and  the  development  of  altruism, 
I  began  to  see  a  little  further  into  the  matter. 
It  then  began  to  appear  that  not  only  is  man 
the  terminal  factor  in  a  long  process  of  evolution, 
but  in  the  origination  of  man  there  began  the 
development  of  the  higher  psychical  attributes, 
and  those  attributes  are  coming  to  play  a  greater 
and  greater  part  in  the  development  of  the 
human  race.  Just  take  this  mere  matter  of 
"altruism,"  as  we  call  it.  It  is  not  a  pretty 
word,  but  must  serve  for  want  of  a  better.  In 
the  development  of  altruism  from  the  low  point, 
where  there  was  scarcely  enough  to  hold  the 
clan  together,  up  to  the  point  reached  at  the 
present  day,  there  has  been  a  notable  progress, 
but  there  is  still  room  for  an  enormous  amount 
of  improvement.  The  progress  has  been  all  in 
the  direction  of  bringing  out  what  we  call  the 
higher  spiritual  attributes.  The  feeling  was 
now  more  strongly  impressed  upon  me  than  ever, 
that  all  these  things  tended  to  set  the  whole 
doctrine  of  evolution  into  harmony  with  religion; 
that  if  the  past  through  which  man  had  origi- 
13 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

nated  was  such  as  has  been  described,  then 
religion  was  a  fit  and  worthy  occupation  for 
man,  and  some  of  the  assumptions  which  imder- 
Ue  every  system  of  rehgion  must  be  true.  For 
example,  with  regard  to  the  assumption  that 
what  we  see  of  the  present  life  is  not  the  whole 
thing;  that  there  is  a  spiritual  side  of  the  question 
beside  the  material  side;  that,  in  short,  there  is 
for  man  a  life  eternal.  When  I  wrote  the  "  Des- 
tiny of  Man,"  all  that  I  ventured  to  say  was, 
that  it  did  not  seem  quite  compatible  with 
ordinary  common  sense  to  suppose  that  so  mtich 
pains  would  have  been  taken  to  produce  a  merely 
ephemeral  result.  But  since  then  another 
argument  has  occurred  to  me:  that  just  at  the 
time  when  the  human  race  was  beginning  to 
come  upon  the  scene,  when  the  germs  of  morality 
were  coming  in  with  the  family,  when  society 
was  taking  its  first  start,  there  came  into  the 
human  mind — how  one  can  hardly  say,  but  there 
did  come — the  beginnings  of  a  groping  after  some- 
thing that  lies  outside  and  beyond  the  world  of 
sense.  That  groping  after  a  spiritual  world  has 
been  going  on  here  for  much  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  years,  and  it  has  played  an  enormous 
part  in  the  history  of  mankind,  in  the  whole 
development  of  human  society.  Nobody  can 
imagine  what  mankind  would  have  been  without 
it  up  to  the  present  time.  Either  all  religion 
has  been  a  reaching  out  for  a  phantom  that  does 
not  exist,  or  a  reaching  out  after  something  that 
does  exist,  but  of  which  man,  with  his  limited 
14 


The   Evolution  of  Man 

intelligence,  has  only  been  able  to  gain  a  crude 
idea.  And  the  latter  seems  a  far  more  probable 
conclusion,  because,  if  it  is  not  so,  it  constitutes  a 
unique  exception  to  all  the  operations  of  evolu- 
tion we  know  about.  As  a  general  thing  in  the 
whole  history  of  evolution,  when  you  see  any 
internal  adjustment  reaching  out  toward  some- 
thing, it  is  in  order  to  adapt  itself  to  something 
that  really  exists ;  and  if  the  religious  cravings  of 
man  constitute  an  exception,  they  are  the  one 
thing  in  the  whole  process  of  evolution  that  is 
exceptional  and  different  from  all  the  rest. 
And  this  is  surely  an  argument  of  stupendous 
and  resistless  weight. 

I  take  this  autobiographical  way  of  referring 
to  these  things,  in  the  order  in  which  they  came 
before  my  mind,  for  the  sake  of  illustration.  The 
net  result  of  the  whole  is  to  put  evolution 
in  harmony  with  religious  thought, — not  neces- 
sarily in  harmony  with  particular  religious  dog- 
mas or  theories,  but  in  harmony  with  the  great 
religious  drift,  so  that  the  antagonism  which 
used  to  appear  to  exist  between  religion  and 
science  is  likely  to  disappear.  So  I  think  it  will 
before  a  great  while.  If  you  take  the  case  of 
some  evolutionist  like  Professor  Haeckel,  who  is 
perfectly  sure  that  materialism  accotuits  for 
everything  (he  has  got  it  all  cut  and  dried  and 
settled;  he  knows  all  about  it,  so  that  there  is 
really  no  need  of  discussing  the  subject !) ;  if  you 
ask  the  question  whether  it  was  his  scientific 
study  of  evolution  that  really  led  him  to  such  a 
15 


Masterpieces   of  Science 

dogmatic  conclusion,  or  whether  it  was  that  he 
started  from  some  purely  arbitrary  assumption, 
like  the  French  materialists  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  latter  would 
be  the  true  explanation.  There  are  a  good 
many  people  who  start  on  their  theories  of  evolu- 
tion with  these  ultimate  questions  all  settled  to 
begin  with.  It  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  that  after  the  first  assaults  of  science  upon 
old  beliefs,  after  a  certain  number  of  Bible  stories 
and  a  certain  number  of  church  doctrines  had 
been  discredited,  there  should  be  a  school  of 
men  who  in  sheer  weariness  should  settle  down 
to  scientific  researches,  and  say,  "We  content 
ourselves  with  what  we  can  prove  by  the  methods 
of  physical  science,  and  we  will  throw  everything 
else  overboard."  That  was  very  much  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  famous  French  atheists  of 
the  last  century.  But  only  think  how  chaotic 
nature  was  to  their  minds  compared  to  what 
she  is  to  our  minds  to-day.  Just  think  how  we 
have  in  the  present  century  arrived  where  we 
can  see  the  bearings  of  one  set  of  facts  in  nature 
as  collated  with  another  set  of  facts,  and  contrast 
it  with  the  view  which  even  the  greatest  of  those 
scientific  French  materialists  could  take.  Con- 
sider how  fragmentary  and  how  lacking  in  ar- 
rangement was  the  universe  they  saw  compared 
with  the  universe  we  see  to-day,  and  it  is  not 
strange  that  to  them  it  could  be  an  atheistic 
world.  That  hostility  between  science  and 
religion  continued  as  long  as  religion  was  linked 
16 


The    Evolution   of   ^lan 

hand  in  hand  with  the  ancient  doctrine  of  special 
creation.  But  now  that  the  rehgious  world  has 
unmoored  itself,  now  that  it  is  beginning  to  see 
the  truth  and  beauty  of  natural  science  and  to 
look  with  friendship  upon  conceptions  of  evolu- 
tion, I  suspect  that  this  temporary  antagonism, 
which  we  have  fallen  into  a  careless  way  of  regard- 
ing as  an  everlasting  antagonism,  will  come  to 
an  end  perhaps  quicker  than  we  realize. 

There  is  one  point  that  is  of  great  interest  in 
this  connection,  although  I  can  only  hint  at  it. 
Among  the  things  that  happened  in  that  dim  past 
when  man  was  coming  into  existence  was  the 
increase  of  his  powers  of  manipulation;  and  that 
was  a  factor  of  immense  importance.  Anaxa- 
goras,  it  is  said,  wrote  a  treatise  in  which  he 
maintained  that  the  human  race  would  never 
have  become  human  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
hand.  I  do  not  know  that  there  was  so  very  much 
exaggeration  about  that.  It  was  certainly  of 
great  significance  that  the  particular  race  of 
mammals  whose  intelligence  increased  far  enough 
to  make  it  worth  while  for  natural  selection  to 
work  upon  intelligence  alone  was  the  race  which 
had  developed  hands  and  could  manipulate 
things.  It  was  a  wonderful  era  in  the  history 
of  creation  when  that  creature  could  take  a  club 
and  use  it  for  a  hammer,  or  could  pry  up  a  stone 
wath  a  stake,  thus  adding  one  more  lever  to  the 
levers  that  made  up  his  arm.  From  that  day 
to  this,  the  career  of  man  has  been  that  of  a 
person  who  has  operated  upon  his  environment 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

in  a  different  way  from  any  animal  before  him. 
An  era  of  similar  importance  came  probably 
somewhat  later,  when  man  learned  how  to  build 
a  fire  and  cook  his  food.  Here  was  another 
means  of  acting  upon  the  environment.  Here 
was  the  beginning  of  the  working  of  endless 
physical  and  chemical  changes  through  the 
application  of  heat,  just  as  the  first  use  of  the 
club  or  the  crowbar  was  the  beginning  of  an 
enormous  development  in  the  mechanical  arts. 
Now,  at  the  same  time,  to  go  back  once  more 
into  that  dim  past,  "when  ethics  and  religion, 
manual  art  and  scientific  thought,  found  expres- 
sion in  the  crudest  form  of  myths,  the  c-esthetic 
sense  was  germmating  likewise.  Away  back  in 
the  glacial  period  you  find  pictures  drawn  and 
scratched  upon  the  reindeer's  antler,  portraitures 
of  mammoths  and  primitive  pictures  of  the  chase ; 
3^ou  see  the  trinkets,  the  personal  decorations, 
proving  beyond  question  that  the  aesthetic  sense 
was  there.  There  has  been  an  immense  aesthetic 
development  since  then.  And  I  believe  that 
in  the  future  it  is  going  to  mean  far  more  to  us 
than  we  have  yet  begun  to  realize.  I  refer  to 
the  kind  of  training  that  comes  to  mankind 
through  direct  operation  upon  his  environment, 
the  incarnation  of  his  thought,  the  putting  of 
his  ideas  into  new  material  relations.  This  is 
going  to  exert  powerful  effects  of  a  civilizing 
kind.  There  is  something  strongly  educational 
and  disciplinary  in  the  mere  dealing  with  matter, 
whether  it  be  in  the  manual  training-school, 
18 


The  Evolution  of  ^lan 

whether  it  be  in  carpentry,  in  overcoming  the 
inherent  and  total  depravity  of  inanimate 
things,  shaping  them  to  your  will,  and  also  in 
learning  to  subject  3'ourself  to  their  will  (for 
sometimes  you  must  do  that  in  order  to  achieve 
your  conquests ;  in  other  words,  you  must  humour 
their  habits  and  proclivities).  In  all  this  there 
is  a  priceless  discipline,  moral  as  well  as  mental, 
let  alone  the  fact  that,  in  whatever  kind  of 
artistic  work  a  man  does,  he  is  doing  that  which 
in  the  ver}'  working  has  in  it  an  element  of  some- 
thing outside  of  egoism;  even  if  he  is  doing  it 
for  motives  not  very  altruistic,  he  is  working 
toward  a  result  the  end  of  which  is  the  gratifica- 
tion or  the  benefit  of  other  persons  than  him- 
self; he  is  working  toward  some  result  which  in 
a  measure  depends  upon  their  approval,  and  to 
that  extent  tends  to  bring  him  into  closer  rela- 
tions to  his  fellow  man. 

In  the  future,  to  an  even  greater  extent  than 
in  the  recent  past,  crude  labour  will  be  replaced 
by  mechanical  contrivances.  The  kind  of  labour 
which  can  command  its  price  is  the  kind  which 
has  trained  intelligence  behind  it.  One  of  the 
great  needs  of  our  time  is  the  multiplication  of 
skilled  and  special  labour.  The  demand  for  the 
products  of  intelligence  is  far  greater  than  that 
for  mere  crude  products  of  labour,  and  it  will  be 
more  and  more  so.  For  there  comes  a  time 
when  the  latter  products  have  satisfied  the  limit 
to  which  a  man  can  consume  food  and  drink 
and  shelter, — those  things  which  merely  keep 
IP 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

the  animal  alive.  But  to  those  things  which 
minister  to  the  requirements  of  the  spiritual  side 
of  a  man  there  is  almost  no  limit.  The  demand 
one  can  conceive  is  well-nigh  infinite.  One  of 
the  philosophical  things  that  have  been  said,  in 
discriminating  man  from  the  lower  animals,  is 
that  he  is  the  one  creature  who  is  never  satisfied. 
It  is  well  for  him  that  he  is  so,  that  there  is 
always  something  more  for  which  he  craves.  To 
my  mind  this  fact  most  strongly  hints  that 
man  is  infinitely  more  than  a  mere  animate 
machine. 


20 


THE  NEW  STUDY  OF  CHILDREN 
Professor  James   Sully 

[This  eminent  writer  is  Grote  Professor  of  the  Philosophy 
of  Mind  and  of  Logic  at  University  College,  London.  His 
works  published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  ar  .fu- 
sions," "Outlines  of  Psychology  with  Special  Refci .aace  to 
the  Theory  of  Education,"  "Teachers'  Handbook  of  Psy- 
chology," "The  Human  Mind,"  "Pessimism,"  "Children's 
Ways,"  and  "Studies  of  Childhood."  From  the  last  men- 
tioned work,  copyright  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  the  following 
is  the  introductory  chapter.] 

Max  has  always  had  the  child  with  him.  and 
one  might  be  sure  that  since  he  became  gentle 
and  alive  to  the  beauty  of  things  he  must  have 
come  under  the  spell  of  the  baby.  We  have 
evidence  beyond  the  oft-quoted  departure  of 
Hector  and  other  pictures  of  childish  grace  in 
early  literature  that  baby-worship  and  baby- 
subjection  are  not  wholly  things  of  modem 
times.  There  is  a  pretty  story  taken  down  by 
Mr.  Leland  from  the  lips  of  an  old  Indian  woman, 
which  relates  how  Glooskap,  the  hero-god,  after 
conquering  all  his  enemies,  rashly  tried  his  hand 
at  managing  a  certain  baby,  Wasis  by  name,  and 
how  he  got  punished  for  his  rashness. 

Yet  there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  it  is 
only  within  comparatively  recent  times  that 
the  more  subtle  charm  and  the  deeper  signifi- 
21 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

cance  of  infancy  have  been  discerned.  We 
have  come  to  appreciate  babyhood  as  we  have 
come  to  appreciate  the  finer  hneaments  of  nature 
as  a  Avhole.  This  appHes  of  course  more  es- 
•ecially  to  the  ruder  sex.  The  man  has  in  him 
luch  of  the  boy's  contempt  for  small  things, 
ind  he  needed  ages  of  education  at  the  hands 
of  the  better-informed  woman  before  he  could 
perceive  the  charm  of  infantile  ways. 

One  of  the  first  males  to  do  justice  to  this 
attractive  subject  was  Rousseau.  He  made 
short  work  with  the  theological  dogma  that  the 
child  is  born  morally  depraved,  and  can  only 
be  made  good  by  miraculous  appliances.  His 
watchword,  return  to  nature,  included  a  rever- 
sion to  the  infant  as  coming  virginal  and  un- 
spoilt by  man's  tinkering  from  the  hands  of  its 
Maker.  To  gain  a  glimpse  of  this  primordial 
beauty  before  it  was  marred  by  man's  awkward 
touch  was  something,  and  so  Rousseau  set  men 
in  the  way  of  sitting  reverently  at  the  feet  of 
infancy,  watching  and  learning. 

For  us  of  today,  who  have  learned  to  go  to 
the  pure  springs  of  nature  for  much  of  our  spirit- 
ual refreshment,  the  child  has  acquired  a  high 
place  among  the  things  of  beauty.  Indeed, 
the  grace  of  childhood  may  almost  be  said  to 
have  been  discovered  by  the  modem  poet. 
Wordsworth  has  stooped  over  his  cradle  intent 
on  catching,  ere  they  passed,  the  "visionary 
gleams"  of  "the  glories  he  hath  known.  "  Blake, 
R.  L.  Stevenson,  and  others,  have  tried  to  put 
22 


The  New   Study   of  Children 

into  language  his  day-dreamings,  his  quaint 
fancyings.  Dickens  and  Victor  Hugo  have 
shown  us  something  of  his  dehcate  quivering 
heart-strings;  Swinburne  has  summed  up  the 
divine  charm  of  "children's  ways  and  wiles." 
The  page  of  modem  literature  is,  indeed,  a 
monument  of  our  child-love  and  our  child-admir- 
ation. 

Nor  is  it  merely  as  to  a  pure  untarnished 
nature  that  we  go  back  admiringly  to  childhood. 
The  aesthetic  charm  of  the  infant  which  draws 
us  so  potently  to  its  side  and  compels  us  tc  watch 
its  words  and  actions  is,  like  everything  else  which 
moves  the  modern  mind,  highly  complex. 
Among  other  sources  of  this  charm  we  may  dis- 
cern the  perfect  serenity,  the  happy  "insou- 
ciance" [unconcern]  of  the  childish  mind.  The 
note  of  world-complaint  in  modem  life  has 
penetrated  into  most  domains,  yet  it  has  not, 
one  would  hope,  penetrated  into  the  charmed 
circle  of  childish  experience.  Childhood  has, 
no  doubt,  its  sad  aspect: 

Poor  stumbler  on  the  rocky  coast  of  woe. 
Tutored  by  pain  each  source  of  pain  to  know: 

neglect  and  cruelty  may  bring  much  misery  into 
the  first  bright  years.  Yet  the  very  instinct  of 
childhood  to  be  glad  in  its  self-created  world,  an 
instinct  which  with  consummate  art  Victor 
Hugo  keeps  warm  and  quick  in  the  breast  of  the 
half-starved  ill-used  child  Cosette,  secures  for 
it  a  peculiar  blessedness.  The  true  nature- 
23 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

child,  who  has  not  become  used-up,  is  happy, 
untroubled  with  the  future,  knowing  nothing  of 
the  misery  of  disillusion.  As,  with  hearts  chas- 
tened by  many  experiences,  we  take  a  peep 
o\-er  the  wall  of  his  fancy-built  pleasance,  we 
seem  to  be  taken  back  to  a  real  golden  age. 
With  Amiel,  we  say:  "The  little  of  paradise 
which  still  remains  on  earth  is  due  to  his  pres- 
ence."  Yet  the  thought,  which  the  same 
moment  brings,  of  the  flitting  of  the  nursery 
visions,  of  the  coming  storm  and  stress,  adds  a 
pathos  to  the  spectacle,  and  we  feci  as  Heine 
felt  when  he  wrote: 

I  look  at  you  and  sadness 
Steals  into  my  heart. 

Other  and  strangely  unlike  feelings  mingle 
with  this  caressing,  half-pitiful  admiration.  We 
modems  are  given  to  relieving  the  strained  at- 
titude of  reverence  and  pit}?-  by  momentary  out- 
bursts of  humorous  merriment.  The  child, 
while  appealing  to  our  admiration  and  our  pity, 
makes  a  large  and  man5^-voiced  appeal  also  to 
our  sense  of  the  laughter  in  things.  It  is  indeed 
hard  to  say  w^hether  he  is  most  amusing 
when  setting  at  naught  in  his  quiet,  lordly  way, 
our  most  extolled  views,  our  ideas  of  what  is 
true  and  false,  of  the  proper  uses  of  things,  and 
so  forth,  or  when  labouring  in  his  perfectly  self- 
conceived  fashion  to  overtake  tis  and  be  as  ex- 
perienced and  as  conventional  as  ourselves.  This 
ever  new  play  of  droll  feature  in  childish  thought 
24 


The   Xew    Study   of  Children 

and  action  forms  one  of  the  deepest  sources  of 
delight  for  the  modern  lover  of  childhood. 

With  the  growth  of  a  poetic  or  sentimental 
interest  in  childhood  there  has  come  a  new  and 
different  kind  of  interest.  Ours  is  a  scientific 
age,  and  science  has  cast  its  inquisitive  eye  on 
the  infant.  We  want  to  know  what  happens 
in  these  first  all-decisive  two  or  three  years  of 
human  life,  by  what  steps  exactly  the  wee  amor- 
phous thing  takes  shape  and  bulk,  both  phys- 
ically and  mentally.  And  we  can  now  speak 
of  the  beginning  of  a  careful  and  methodical 
investigation  of  child-nature,  by  men  trained 
in  scientific  observation.  This  line  of  inquiry, 
started  by  physicians,  as  the  German  Sigismund, 
in  connection  with  their  special  professional 
aims,  has  been  carried  on  by  a  number  of  fathers 
and  others  having  access  to  the  infant,  among 
whom  it  may  be  enough  to  name  Darwin  and 
Preyer. 

This  eagerness  to  know  what  the  child  is  like, 
an  eagerness  illustrated  further  by  the  number 
of  reminiscences  of  early  years  recently  pub- 
lished, is  the  outcome  of  a  many-sided  interest 
Avhich  it  may  be  w^orth  while  to  analyze. 

The  most  obvious  source  of  interest  in  the 
doings  of  infancy  lies  in  its  primitiveness.  At 
the  cradle  we  are  watching  the  beginnings  of 
things,  the  first  tentative  thrustings  fon\'ard 
into  life.  Our  modem  science  is  before  all  things 
historical  and  genetic,  going  back  to  beginnings 
so  as  to  understand  the  later  and  more  complex 
25 


Masterpieces  of   Science 

phases  of  things  as  the  outcome  of  these  be- 
ginnings. The  same  kind  of  curiosity  which 
prompts  the  geologist  to  get  back  to  the  first 
stages  in  the  building  up  of  the  planet,  or  the 
biologist  to  search  out  the  pristine  forms  of  life, 
is  beginning  to  urge  the  student  of  man  to  dis- 
cover by  a  careful  study  of  infancy  the  way  in 
which  human  life  begins  to  take  its  characteristic 
forms. 

The  appearance  of  Darwin's  name  among 
those  who  haye  deemed  the  child  worthy  of 
study  suggests  that  the  subject  is  closely  con- 
nected with  natural  history.  However  man  in 
his  proud  maturity  may  be  related  to  Nature, 
it  -s  certain  that  in  his  humble  inception  he  is 

nersed   in    Nature   and    saturated   with   her. 
3  we  all  know,   the  lowest  races  of  mankind 

■nd  in  close  proximity  to  the  animal  world. 
Th  same  is  true  of  the  infants  of  civilized  races. 
Their  life  is  outward  and  visible,  forming  a  part 
of  nature's  spectacle;  reason  and  will,  the  noble 
prerogatives  of  humanity,  are  scarce  discernible; 
sense,  appetite,  instinct,  these  animal  functions 
seem  to  sum  up  the  first  year  of  human  life. 

To  the  evolutionist,  moreover,  the  infant 
exhibits  a  still  closer  kinship  to  the  natural 
world.  In  the  successive  stages  of  foetal  develop- 
ment he  sees  the  gradual  unfolding  of  human 
lineaments  out  of  a  widely  typical  animal  form. 
And  even  after  birth  he  can  discern  new  evi- 
dences of  this  genealogical  relation  of  the  "lord" 
of  creation  to  his  inferiors.  How  significant, 
26 


The  New  Study  of   Children 

for  example,  is  the  fact  recently  established  by 
a  medical  man,  Dr.  Louis  Robinson,  that  the 
new-bom  infant  is  able  just  like  the  ape  to  sus- 
pend his  whole  weight  by  grasping  a  small  hnri  • 
zontal  rod. 

Yet  even  as  nature-object  for  the  biologist  the 
child  presents,  distinctive  attributes.  Though 
sharing  in  animal  instinct,  he  shares  in  it  only  to 
a  very  small  extent.  The  most  striking  char- 
acteristic of  the  new-bom  offspring  of  man  is  its 
unpreparedness  for  life.  Compare  vrith  the 
young  of  other  animals  the  infant  so  feeble  and 
incapable.  He  can  neither  use  his  limbs  nor 
see  the  distance  of  objects  as  a  new-bom  chick 
or  calf  is  able  to  do.  His  brain-centres  are, 
we  are  told,  in  a  pitiable  state  of  undevelopment 
— and  are  not  even  securely  encased  within  their 
bony  covering.  Indeed,  he  resembles  for  all  the 
world  a  public  building  which  has  to  be  opened 
by  a  given  date,  and  is  found  when  the  day 
arrives  to  be  in  a  humiliating  state  of  incomplete- 
ness. 

This  fact  of  the  special  helplessness  of  the 
human  off-spring  at  birth,  of  its  long  period  of 
dependence  on  parental  or  other  aids — a  period 
which,  probably,  tends  to  grow  longer  as  civiUza- 
tion  advances — is  rich  in  biological  and  socio- 
logical significance.  For  one  thing,  it  presup- 
poses a  specially  high  development  of  the  pro- 
tective and  fostering  instincts  in  the  human 
parents,  and  particularly  the  mother — for  if 
the  helpless  wee  thing  were  not  met  by  these 
27 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

instincts,  what  would  become  of  our  race  ?  It 
is  probable,  too,  as  Mr.  Spencer  and  others  have 
argued,  that  the  institution  by  nature  of  this 
condition  of  infantile  weakness  has  reacted  on 
the  social  affections  of  the  race,  helping  to  de- 
velop our  pitifulness  for  all  frail  and  helpless 
things. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  existence  of  the  infant, 
with  its  large  and  imperative  claims,  has  been  a 
fact  of  capital  importance  in  the  development 
of  social  customs.  Ethnological  researches  show 
that  communities  have  been  much  exercised 
with  the  problem  of  infancy,  have  paid  it  the 
homage  due  to  its  supreme  sacredness,  girding 
it  about  with  a  whole  group  of  protective  and 
beneficial  customs. 

Enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  show  the 
far-reaching  significance  of  babyhood  to  the 
modem  savant.  It  is  hardly  too 'much  to  say 
that  it  has  become  one  of  the  most  eloquent  of 
na'iure's  phenomena,  telling  tis  at  once  of  our 
affinity  to  the  animal  world,  and  of  the  forces 
by  which  our  race  has.  little  by  little,  lifted  itself 
to  so  exalted  a  position  above  this  world;  and 
so  it  has  happened  that  not  merely  to  the  per- 
ennial baby-worshipper,  the  mother,  and  not 
merely  to  the  poet  touched  with  the  mystery  of 
far-off  things,  but  to  the  grave  man  of  science 
the  infant  has  become  a  centre  of  lively  interest. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  not  to  the  mere  naturalist 
that  the  babe  reveals  all  its  significance.  Phys- 
ical organism  as  it  seems  to  be  more  than  any- 
28 


The   New  Study   of  Children 

thing  else,  hardly  mere  than  a  vegetative  thing 
indeed,  it  carries  with  it  the  germ  of  a  human 
consciousness,  and  this  consciousness  begins  to 
expand  and  to  form  itself  into  a  truly  human 
shape  from  the  very  beginning.  And  here  a 
new  source  of  interest  presents  itself.  It  is 
the  human  psychologist,  the  student  of  those 
impalpable,  unseizable,  evanescent  phenomena 
which  we  call  "state  of  consciousness,"  who  has 
a  supreme  interest,  and  a  scientific  property  in 
these  first  years  of  a  human  existence.  What  is 
of  most  account  in  these  crude  tentatives  at  living 
after  the  human  fashion  is  the  play  of  mind,  the 
first  spontaneous  manifestations  of  recognition, 
of  reasoning  expectation,  of  feelings  of  sympathy 
and  antipathy,  of  definite  persistent  piurpose. 

Rude,  inchoate,  vague  enough,  no  doubt,  are 
these  first  groping  movements  of  a  human  mind: 
yet  of  supreme  value  to  the  psychologist  just 
because  they  are  the  first.  If,  reflects  the  psy- 
chologist, he  can  only  get  at  this  baby's  con- 
sciousness so  as  to  understand  what  is  passing 
there,  he  will  be  in  an  infinitely  better  position 
to  find  his  way  through  the  intricacies  of  the  adult 
consciousness.  It  may  be,  as  we  shall  see  by- 
and-by,  that  the  baby's  mind  is  not  so  perfectly 
simple,  so  absolutely  primitive  as  it  at  first  looks. 
Yet  it  is  the  simplest  type  of  human  conscious- 
ness to  which  we  can  have  access.  The  inves- 
tigator of  this  consciousness  can  never  take  any 
known  sample  of  the  animal  mind  as  his  starting 
point  if  for  no  other  reason  than  this,  that  while 
29 


Masterpieces  of  Science 

possessing  many  of  the  elements  of  the  human 
mind,  it  presents  these  in  so  unUke,  so  pecuHar  a 
pattern. 

In  this  genetic  tracing  back  of  the  complexities 
of  man's  mental  life  to  their  primitive  elements 
in  the  child's  consciousness,  questions  of  peculiar 
interest  will  arise.  A  problem  which  though 
having  a  venerable  antiquity  is  still  full  of  mean- 
ing concerns  the  precise  relation  of  the  higher 
forms  of  intelligence  and  of  sentiment  to  the 
elementary  facts  of  the  individual's  life-ex- 
perience. Are  we  to  regard  all  our  ideas,  even 
those  of  God,  as  woven  by  the  mind  out  of  its' 
experiences,  as  Locke  thought,  or  have  we  certain 
"innate  ideas"  from  the  first?  Locke  thought 
he  could  settle  this  point  by  observing  children. 
To-day,  when  the  philosophic  emphasis  is  laid 
not  on  the  date  of  appearance  of  the  "innate" 
intuition,  but  on  its  originality  and  spontaneity^, 
this  method  of  interrogating  the  child's  mind 
may  seem  less  promising.  Yet  if  of  less 
philosophical  importance  than  was  once  sup- 
posed, it  is  of  great  psychological  importance. 
There  are  certain  questions,  such  as  that  of  how 
we  come  to  see  things  at  a  distance  from  us, 
which  can  be  approached  most  advantageously 
by  a  study  of  infant  movements.  In  like  manner 
I  believe  the  growth  of  a  moral  sentiment,  of 
that  feeling  of  reverence  for  duty  to  which  Kant 
gave  so  eloquent  an  expression,  can  only  be 
understood  by  the  most  painstaking  observation 
of  the  mental  activities  of  the  first  years. 
30 


The   Xew  Study   of  Children 

There  is,  however,  another,  and  in  a  sense  a 
larger,  source  of  psychological  interest  in  study- 
ing the  processes  and  development  of  the  infant 
mind.  It  was  pointed  out  above  that  to  the 
evolutional  biologist  the  child  exhibits  man  in 
his  kinship  to  the  lower  sentient  world.  This 
same  evolutional  point  of  view  enables  the  psy- 
chologist to  connect  the  unfolding  of  an  infant's 
mind  with  something  which  has  gone  before, 
with  the  mental  history  of  the  race.  According 
to  this  way  of  looking  at  infancy  the  successive 
phases  of  its  mental  life  are  a  brief  resume  of  the 
more  important  features  in  the  slow  upward 
progress  of  the  species.  The  periods  dominated 
successively  by  sense  and  appetite,  by  blind 
wondering  and  superstitious  fancy,  and  by  a 
calmer  observation  and  a  juster  reasoning  about 
things,  these  steps  mark  the  pathway  both  of 
the  child-mind  and  of  the  race-mind. 

This  being  so,  the  first  years  of  a  child,  with 
their  imperfect  verbal  expression,  their  crude 
fanciful  ideas,  their  seizures  by  rage  and  terror, 
their  absorption  in  the  present  moment,  acquire 
a  new  and  antiquarian  interest.  They  mirror 
for  us,  in  a  diminished  distorted  reflection  no 
doubt,  the  probable  condition  of  primitive  man. 
As  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  other  anthropologists 
have  told  us,  the  intellectual  and  moral  resem- 
blances between  the  lowest  existing  races  of 
mankind  and  children  are  numerous  and  close. 

Yet  this  wa3'  of  viewing  childhood  is  not  merely 
of  antiquarian  interest.  While  a  monument  of 
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Masterpieces   of  Science 

his  race,  and  in  a  manner  a  key  to  its  history, 
the  child  is  also  its  product.  In  spite  of  the 
fashionable  Weismannism  of  the  hour,  there  are 
evolutionists  who  hold  that  in  the  early  man- 
ifested tendencies  of  the  child  we  can  discern 
signs  of  a  hereditary  transmission  of  the  effects 
of  ancestral  experiences  and  activities.  His  first 
manifestations  of  rage,  for  example,  are  a  sur- 
vival of  actions  of  remote  ancestors  in  their  life 
and  death  struggles.  The  impulse  of  obedience, 
which  is  as  much  a  characteristic  of  the  child  as 
that  of  disobedience,  may  in  like  manner  be 
regarded  as  a  transmitted  rudiment  of  a  long- 
practised  action  of  socialized  ancestors.  This 
idea  of  an  increment  of  intelligence  and  moral 
disposition,  earned  for  the  individual  not  by 
himself  but  by  his  ancestors,  has  its  peculiar 
interest.  It  gives  a  new  meaning  to  human  prog- 
ress to  suppose  that  the  dawn  of  infant  intelli- 
gence, instead  of  being  a  return  to  a  primitive 
darkness,  contains  from  the  first  a  faint  light 
reflected  on  it  from  the  lamp  of  racial  intelligence 
which  has  preceded  that  instead  of  a  return  to 
the  race's  starting  point,  the  lowest  form  of  the 
school  of  experience,  it  is  a  start  in  a  higher  form, 
the  promotion  being  a  reward  conferred  on  the 
child  for  the  exertions  of  his  ancestors.  Psy- 
chological observation  will  be  well  employed 
in  scanning  the  feature's  of  the  infant's  mind  in 
order  to  see  whether  they  yield  evidence  of  such 
ancestral  dowering. 

So  much  with  respect  to  the  rich  and  varied 
32 


The   New   Study  of  Children 

scientific  interest  attaching  to  the  movements  of 
the  child's  mind.  It  only  remains  to  touch  on 
a  third  main  interest  in  childhood,  the  practical 
or  educational  interest.  The  modem  world, 
while  erecting  the  child  into  an  object  of  aesthetic 
contemplation,  while  bringing  to  bear  on  him 
the  bull's  eye  lamp  of  scientific  observation,  has 
become  sorely  troubled  by  the  momentous  prob- 
lem of  rearing  him.  What  was  once  a  matter 
of  instinct  and  unthinking  rule-of-thumb  has 
become  the  subject  of  profound  and  perplexing 
discussion.  Mothers — the  right  sort  of  mothers 
that  is — feel  that  they  must  know  to  the  core 
this  wee  speechless  creature  which  they  are 
called  upon  to  direct  into  the  safe  road  to  man- 
hood. And  professional  teachers,  more  par- 
ticularly the  beginners  in  the  work  of  training, 
whose  work  is  in  some  respects  the  most  difficult 
and  the  most  honourable,  have  come  to  see  that 
a  clear  insight  into  child-nature  and  its  spon- 
taneous movements  must  precede  any  intelligent 
attempt  to  work  beneficially  upon  this  nature. 
In  this  way  the  teacher  has  lent  his  support  to 
the  savant  and  the  psychologist  in  their  inves- 
tigation of  infancy.  More  particularly  he  has 
betaken  him  to  the  psychologist  in  order  to  dis- 
cover more  of  the  native  tendencies  and  the 
governing  laws  of  that  unformed  child-mind 
which  it  is  his  in  a  special  manner  to  form.  In 
addition  to  this,  the  growing  educational  interest 
in  the  spontaneous  behaviour  of  the  child's 
mind  may  be  expected  to  issue  in  a  demand  for 
33 


Masterpieces   of  Science 

a  statistic  of  childhood,  that  is  to  say,  carefully 
arranged  collections  of  observations  bearing  on 
such  points  as  children's  questions,  their  first 
thoughts  about  nature,  their  manifestations  of 
sensibility  and  insensibility. 

The  awakening  in  the  modem  mind  of  this 
keen  and  varied  interest  in  childhood  has  led, 
and  is  destined  to  lead  still  more,  to  the  observa- 
tion of  infantile  ways.  This  observation  will,  of 
course,  be  of  very  different  value  according  as 
it  subserves  the  contemplation  of  the  humorous 
or  other  aesthetically  valuable  aspect  of  child- 
nature,  or  as  it  is  directed  towards  a  scientific 
understanding  of  this.  Pretty  anecdotes  of 
children  which  tickle  the  emotions  may  or  may 
not  add  to  our  insight  into  the  peculiar  mechan- 
ism of  children's  minds.  There  is  no  necessary 
connection  between  smiling  at  infantile  drolleries 
and  understanding  the  laws  of  infantile  intelli- 
gence. Indeed,  the  mood  of  merriment,  if  too 
exuberant,  will  pretty  certainly  swamp  for  the 
moment   any   desire  to  understand. 

The  observ-ation  which  is  to  further  under- 
standing, which  is  to  be  acceptable  to  science, 
must  itself  be  scientific.  That  is  to  say,  it  must 
be  at  once  guided  by  foreknowledge,  specially 
directed  to  what  is  essential  in  a  phenomenon 
and  its  surroundings  or  conditions,  and  perfectly 
exact.  If  anybody  supposes  this  to  be  easy,  he 
should  first  try  his  hand  at  the  work,  and  then 
compare  what  he  has  seen  with  what  '^^aruan 
or  Preyer  has  been  able  to  discover. 
34 


The   New   Study   of  Children 

How  difficult  this  is  may  be  seen  even  with 
reference  to  the  outward  physical  part  of  the 
phenomena  to  be  observed.  Ask  any  mother 
tmtrained  in  obser\'ation  to  note  the  first  appear- 
ance of  that  complex  facial  movement  which  we 
call  a  smile,  and  you  know  what  kind  of  result 
you  are  likely  to  get.  The  phenomena  of  a 
child's  mental  life,  even  on  its  physical  and 
visible  side,  are  of  so  subtle  and  fugitive  a  charac- 
ter that  only  a  fine  and  quick  observation  is  able 
to  cope  with  them.  But  observation  of  children 
is  never  merely  seeing.  Even  the  smile  has  to 
be  interpreted  as  a  smile  by  a  process  of  imagina- 
tive inference.  Many  careless  onlookers  would 
say  that  a  baby  smiles  in  the  first  days  from 
ver}'  happiness,  when  another  and  simpler  ex- 
planation of  the  movement  is  forthcoming. 
Similarly,  it  wants  much  fine  judgment  to  say 
whether  an  infant  is  merely  stumbling  accident- 
ally on  an  articulate  sound,  or  is  imitating  your 
sound.  A  glance  at  some  of  the  best  memoirs 
will  show  how  enormously  difficult  it  is  to  be 
sure  of  a  right  interpretation  of  these  early  and 
comparativel}'   simple   manifestations   of  mind. 

Things  grow  a  great  deal  worse  when  we  try 
to  throw  our  scientific  lasso  about  the  elusive 
spirit  of  a  child  of  four  or  six,  and  to  catch  the 
exact  meaning  of  its  swiftly  changing  movements. 
Children  are,  no  doubt,  at  this  age  frank  before 
the  eye  of  lo\  j,  and  their  minds  are  vastly  more 
accessible  than  that  of  the  dumb  dog  that  can 
only  look  his  ardent  thoughts.  Yet  they  are 
35 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

by  no  means  so  open  to  view  as  is  often  supposed. 
All  k  nds  of  shy  reticences  hamper  them:  they 
feel  askilled  in  using  our  cumbrous  language; 
^he>  Jon  find  out  that  their  thoughts  are  not  as 
out  often  make  us  laugh.  And  how  care- 
ful are  they  wont  to  hide  from  our  sight  their 
na  4ess  terrors,  physical  and  moral.  Much  of 
the  deeper  childish  experience  can  only  reach 
us,  if  at  all,  years  after  it  is  over,  through  the 
faulty  medium  of  adult  memory — faulty  even 
when  it  is  the  memory  of  a  Goethe,  a  George 
Sand,  a  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

Even  when  there  is  perfect  candour,  and  the 
little  one  does  his  best  to  instruct  us  as  to  what 
is  passing  in  his  mind  by  his  "whys"  and  his 
"I  'sposes,"  accompanied  by  the  most  eloquent 
of  looks,  we  find  ourselves  ever  and  again  unequal 
to  comprehending.  Child-thought  follows  its 
own  paths — roads,  as  j\Ir.  Rudyard  Kipling  has 
well  said,  "unlcnown  to  those  who  have  left 
childhood  behind."  The  dark  sayings  of  child- 
hood, as  when  child  asks,  "Why  am  I  not  some- 
body else  ? ' '  will  be  fully  illustrated  below. 

This  being  so,  it  might  well  seem  arrogant  to 
speak  of  any  "scientific"  investigation  of  the 
child's  mind;  and,  to  be  candid,  I  may  as  well 
confess  that,  in  spite  of  some  recently  published 
highly  hopeful  forecasts  of  what  child-psychology 
is  going  to  do  for  us,  I  think  we  are  a  long  way 
off  from  a  perfectly  scientific  account  of  it.  Our 
so-called  theories  of  children's  mental  activity 
have  so  often  been  hasty  generalizations  from 
36 


The   New  Study  of  Children 

imperfect  observation.  Children  are  probably- 
much  more  diverse  in  their  ways  of  thinking  and 
feeling  than  our  theories  suppose.  But  of  this 
more  presently.  Even  where  we  meet  with  a 
common  and  comparatively  prominent  trait, 
we  are  far  as  yet  from  having  a  perfect  compre- 
hension of  it  I  at  least  believe  that  children's 
play,  about  which  so  much  has  confidently  been 
written,  is  but  imperfectly  understood.  Is  it 
serious  business,  half-conscious  make-believe, 
more  than  half-conscious  acting,  or,  no  one  of 
these,  or  all  of  them  by  turns  ?  I  think  he  would 
be  a  bold  man  who  ventured  to  answer  this 
question  straight  away. 

In  this  state  of  things  it  might  seem  well  to 
wait.  Possibly  by-and-by  we  shall  light  on 
new  methods  of  tapping  the  childish  conscious- 
ness. Patients  in  a  certain  stage  of  the  hypnotic 
trance  have  returned,  it  is  said,  to  their  childish 
experience  and  feelings.  Some  people  do  this, 
or  appear  to  do  this,  in  their  dreams.  I  know  a 
young  man  who  revives  vivid  recollections  of 
the  experiences  of  the  third  3'ear  of  Hfe  when 
he  is  sleepy,  and  more  especially  if  he  is  suffering 
from  a  cold.  These  facts  suggest  that  if  we 
only  knew  more  about  the  mode  of  working  of 
the  brain  we  might  reinstate  a  special  group  of 
conditions  which  would  secure  a  re-emergence 
of  childish  ideas  and  sentiments. 

Yet  our  case  is  not  so  hopeless  that  we  need 
defer  inqtdry  into  the  child's  mind  until  human 
science  has  fathomed  all  the  mysteries  of  the 
37 


Masterpieces  of   Science 

brain.  We  can  know  many  things  of  this  mind, 
and  these  of  great  importance,  even  now.  The 
naturaHst  discusses  the  actions  of  the  lower 
animals,  confidently  attributing  intelligent  plan- 
ning here  and  a  germ  of  vanity  or  even  of  moral 
sense  there;  and  it  would  be  hard  were  we  for- 
bidden to  study  the  little  people  that  are  of  our 
own  race,  and  are  a  thousand  times  more  open 
to  inspection.  Really  good  work  has  already 
been  done  here,  and  one  should  be  grateful.  At 
the  same  time,  it  seems  to  me  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  recognize  that  it  is  but  a  begin- 
ning: that  the  child  which  the  modem  world 
has  in  the  main  discovered  is  after  all  only  half 
discovered:  that  if  we  are  to  get  at  his  inner  life, 
his  playful  conceits,  his  solemn  broodings  over 
the  mysteries  of  things,  his  way  of  responding 
to  the  motley  show  of  life,  we  must  carry  this 
work  of  noting  and  interpreting  to  a  much  higher 
point. 

Now,  if  progress  is  to  be  made  in  this  work, 
we  must  have  specially  qualified  workers.  All 
who  know  anything  of  the  gross  misunderstand- 
ings of  children  of  which  many  so-called  intelli- 
gent adults  are  capable,  will  bear  me  out  when 
I  say  that  a  certain  gift  of  penetration  is  abso- 
lutely indispensable  here.  If  any  one  asks  me 
what  the  qualifications  of  a  good  child-observer 
amount  to,  I  may  perhaps  answer,  for  the  sake 
of  brevity,  "A  divining  faculty,  the  offspring  of 
child-love,  perfected  by  scientific  training." 
Let  us  see  what  this  includes. 
38 


The   New   Study   of   Children 

That  the  observer  of  children  must  be  a  diviner, 
a  sort  of  clairvoyant  reader  of  their  secret 
thoughts,  seems  to  me  perfectly  obvious.  Watch 
half  a  dozen  men  who  find  themselves  imex- 
pectedly  ushered  into  a  room  tenanted  by  a 
small  child,  and  you  will  soon  be  able  to  dis- 
tinguish the  diviners,  who,  just  because  they 
have  in  themselves  something  akin  to  the  child, 
seem  able  at  once  to  get  into  touch  with  children. 
It  is  probable  that  women's  acknowledged 
superiority  in  knowledge  of  child-nature  is  owing 
to  their  higher  gift  of  sympathetic  i.isight. 
This  faculty,  so  far  from  being  pureh^  intell  "ctual, 
is  very  largely  the  outgrowth  of  a  peculiar  moral 
nature  to  which  the  life  of  all  small  things,  and 
of  children  more  than  all,  is  always  sweet  and 
congenial.  It  is  very  much  of  a  secondary,  or 
acquired  instinct;  that  is,  an  unreflecting  intui- 
tion which  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  large  experience. 
For  the  child-lover  seeks  the  object  of  his  love, 
and  is  never  so  happy  as  when  associating  with 
children  and  sharing  in  their  thoughts  and  their 
pleasures.  And  it  is  through  such  habitual 
intercourse  that  there  forms  itself  the  instinct 
or  tact  by  which  the  significance  of  childish 
manifestation  is  at  once  unerringly  discerned. 

There  is  in  this  tact  or  fineness  of  spiritual 
touch  one  constituent  so  important  as  to  deserve 
special  mention.  I  mean  a  lively  memory  of 
one's  own  childhood.  As  I  have  observed  above, 
I  do  not  believe  in  an  exact  and  trustworthy 
reproduction  in  later  life  of  particular  incidents 
39 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

of  childhood.  All  recalling  of  past  experiences 
illustrates  the  modifying  influence  of  the  later 
self  in  its  attempt  to  assimilate  and  understand 
the  past  self;  and  this  transforming  effect  is  at 
its  maximum  when  we  try  to  get  back  to  child- 
hood. But  though  our  memory  of  childhood 
is  not  in  itself  exact  enough  to  furnish  facts,  it 
may  be  sufficiently  strong  for  the  purposes  of 
interpreting  our  observations  of  the  children  we 
sec  about  us.  It  is  said,  and  said  rightly,  that 
in  order  to  read  a  child's  mind  we  need  imagina- 
tion, and  since  all  imagination  is  merely  readjust- 
ment of  individual  experience,  it  follows  that 
the  skilled  decipherer  of  infantile  characters 
needs  before  all  things  to  be  in  touch  with  his 
own  early  feelings  and  thoughts.  And  this  is 
just  what  we  find.  The  vivacious,  genial  woman 
who  is  never  so  much  at  home  as  when  surrounded 
by  a  bevy  of  eager-minded  children  is  a  woman 
who  remains  young  in  the  important  sense  that 
she  retains  much  of  the  freshness  and  uncon- 
ventionality  of  mind,  much  of  the  gaiety  and 
expansiveness  of  early  life.  Conversely  one 
may  feel  pretty  sure  that  a  woman  who  retains 
a  vivid  memory  of  her  childish  ideas  and  feelings 
will  be  drawn  to  the  companionship  of  children. 
After  reading  their  autobiographies  one  hardly 
needs  to  be  told  that  Goethe  carried  into  old  age 
his  quick  responsiveness  to  the  gaiety  of  the 
young  heart;  and  that  George  Sand  when  grown 
old  was  never  so  happy  as  when  gathering  the 
youngsters  about  her. 

40 


The    Xew    Study   of   Children 

Yet  valuable  as  is  this  gift  of  sympathetic 
insight,  it  will  not,  of  course,  conduce  to  that 
methodical,  exact  kind  of  observation  which 
is  required  by  science.  Hence  the  need  of  the 
second  qualification:  psychological  training. 
By  this  is  meant  that  special  knowledge  which 
comes  from  studying  the  principles  of  the  science, 
its  peculiar  problems,  and  the  methods  appro- 
priate to  these,  together  with  the  special  skill 
which  is  attained  by  a  methodical,  practical 
application  of  this  knowledge  in  the  actual 
observ^ation  and  interpretation  of  manifestations 
of  mind.  Thus  a  woman  who  wishes  to  observe 
to  good  effect  the  mind  of  a  child  of  three  must 
have  a  sufficient  acquaintance  with  the  general 
course  of  the  mental  life  to  know  what  to  expect, 
and  in  what  way  the  phenomena  observ'ed  have 
to  be  interpreted.  Really  fine  and  fruitful 
observation  is  the  outcome  of  a  large  knowledge, 
and  anybody  who  is  to  carry  out  in  a  scientific 
fashion  the  observation  of  the  humblest  phase  of 
a  child's  mental  life  must  already  know  this  life 
as  a  whole,  so  far  as  psychology  can  as  yet  de- 
scribe its  characteristics,  and  determine  the 
conditions  of  its  activity. 

xA.nd  here  the  question  naturally  arises:  "Who 
is  to  carry  out  this  new  line  of  scientific  obser- 
vation?" To  begin  with  the  first  stage  of  it, 
who  is  to  carry  out  the  exact  methodical  record 
of  the  movements  of  the  infant  ?  It  is  evident 
that  quahfication  or  capacity  is  not  all  that  is 
necessary-  here;  capacity  must  be  favoured  with 
41 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

opportunity   before   the   work   can   be   actually 
begun. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  pioneers  who 
struck  out  this  new  line  of  experimental  research 
were  medical  men.  The  meaning  of  this  fact  is 
pretty  apparent.  The  doctor  has  not  only  a 
turn  for  scientific  observation:  he  is  a  privileged 
person  in  the  nursery.  The  natural  guardians 
of  infancy,  the  mother  and  the  nurse,  exempt 
him  from  their  general  ban  on  the  male.  He 
excepted,  no  man,  not  even  the  child's  own 
father,  is  allowed  to  meddle  too  much  with  that 
divine  mystery,  that  meeting  point  of  all  the 
graces  and  all  the  beatitudes,  the  infant. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  natural  prejudice 
which  the  inquirer  into  the  characteristics  of  the 
infant  has  to  face.  Such  inquiry  is  not  merely 
passively  watching  what  spontaneously  presents 
itself;  it  is  emphatically  experimenting,  that  is, 
the  calling  out  of  reactions  by  applying  appro- 
priate stimuli.  Even  to  try  whether  the  new- 
bom  babj  will  close  its  fingers  on  your  finger 
when  brought  into  contact  with  their  anterior 
surface  may  well  seem  impious  to  a  properly 
constituted  nurse.  To  propose  to  test  the  wee 
creature's  sense  of  taste  by  applying  drops  of 
various  solutions,  as  acid,  bitters,  etc.,  to  the 
tongue,  or  to  provoke  ocular  movements  to  the 
right  or  the  left,  would  pretty  certainly  seem 
a  profanation  o"*^  the  temple  of  infancy,  if  not 
fraught  with  danger  to  its  tiny  deity.  And  as 
to  trying  Dr.  Robinson's  experiment  of  getting 
42 


The    New   Study   of  Children 

the  newly  arrived  visitor  to  suspend  his  whole 
precious  weight  by  clasping  a  bar,  it  is  pretty 
certain  that,  women  being  constituted  as  at 
present,  only  a  medical  man  could  have  dreamt 
of  so  daring  a  feat. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  baby- worship,  the  senti- 
mental adoration  of  infant  ways,  is  highly  inimi- 
cal to  the  carrying  out  of  a  perfectly  cool  and 
impartial  process  of  scientific  observation. 
Hence  the  average  mother  can  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  do  more  than  barely  to  tolerate  this 
encroaching  of  experiment  into  the  hallowed 
retreat  of  the  nursery.  Even  in  these  days-  of 
rapid  modification  of  what  used  to  be  thought 
unalterable  sexual  characters,  one  may  be  bold 
enough  to  hazard  the  prophecy  that  women  who 
have  had  scientific  training  will,  if  they  happen 
to  become  mothers,  hardly  be  disposed  to  give 
their  minds  at  the  very  outset  to  the  rather  com- 
plex and  difficult  work,  say,  of  making  an  accurate 
scientific  inventory  of  the  several  modes  of  in- 
fantile sensibility,  visual,  auditory,  and  so  forth, 
and  of  the  alterations  in  these  from  day  to  day. 

It  is  for  the  coarser  fibred  man,  then,  to  under- 
take much  of  the  earlier  experimental  work  in 
the  investigation  of  child-nature.  And  if  fathers 
will  duly  qualify  themselves  they  will  probably 
find  that  permission  will  little  by  little  be  given 
them  to  carry  out  investigations,  short,  of  course, 
of  anything  that  looks  distinctly  dangerous  to 
the  little  being's  comfort. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  evident  that  a  complete 
43 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

series  of  observations  of  the  infant  can  hardly  be 
carried  out  by  a  man  alone.  It  is  for  the  mother, 
or  some  other  woman  with  a  pass-key  to  the 
nursery,  with  her  frequent  and  prolonged  oppor- 
tunities of  observation  to  attempt  a  careful  and 
methodical  register  of  mental  progress.  Hence 
the  importance  of  enlisting  the  mother  or  her 
female  representative  as  coUaborateur  or  at  least 
as  assistant.  Thus  supposing  the  father  is  bent 
on  ascertaining  the  exact  dates  and  the  order  of 
appearance  of  the  different  articulate  sounds, 
which  is  rather  a  subject  of  passive  observation 
than  of  active  experiment;  he  will  be  almost  com- 
pelled to  call  in  the  aid  of  one  who  has  the  con- 
siderable advantage  of  passing  a  good  part  of 
each  day  near  the  child.* 

As  the  wee  thing  grows  and  its  nervous  system 
becomes  more  stable  and  robust  more  in  the  way 
of  research  may  of  course  be  safely  attempted. 
In  this  higher  stage  the  work  of  observation  will 
be  less  simple  and  involve  more  of  special  psy- 
chological knowledge.  It  is  a  comparatively 
easy  thing  to  say  whether  the  sudden  approach 

*  The  great  advantage  which  the  female  observer  of  the 
infant's  mind  has  over  her  male  competitor  is  clearly  illus- 
trated in  some  recent  studies  of  childhood  by  American 
women.  I  would  especially  call  attention  to  a  study 
by  Miss  M.  W.  Shinn,  (University  of  California  series) 
Notes  on  the  Development  of  a  Child  (the  writer's  niece), 
where  the  minute  and  painstaking  record  (e.g.  of  the  child's 
colour-discrimination  and  visual  space  exploration)  points 
to  the  ample  opportunity  of  observation  which  comes  more 
readily  to  women. 

44 


The    New   Study   of   Children 

of  an  object  to  the  eye  of  a  baby  a  week  or  so 
old  calls  forth  the  reflex  known  as  blinking:  it  is  a 
much  more  difficult  thing  to  say  what  are  the 
preferences  of  a  child  of  twelve  months  in  the 
matter  of  simple  forms,  or  even  colours. 

The  problem  of  the  order  of  development  of 
the  colour-sense  in  children  looks  at  first  easy 
enough.  Any  mother,  it  may  be  thought,  can 
say  which  colours  the  child  first  recognizes  by 
naming  them  when  seen,  or  picking  them  out 
when  another  names  them.  Yet  simple  as 
it  looks,  the  problem  is  in  reality  anything  but 
simple.  A  German  investigator,  Professor  Preyer 
of  Berlin,  went  to  work  methodically  with  his 
little  boy  of  two  years  in  order  to  see  in  what 
order  he  would  discriminate  colours.  Two 
colours,  red  and  green,  were  first  shown,  the 
name  added  to  each,  and  the  child  then  asked: 
"Which  is  red?"  "Which  is  green?"  Then 
other  colours  were  added  and  the  experiments 
repeated.  According  to  these  researches  this 
particular  child  first  acquired  a  clear  discrimina- 
tive awareness  of  yellow.  Preyer's  results  have 
not,  however,  been  confirmed  by  other  investiga- 
tors, as  M.  Binet,  of  Paris,  who  followed  a  similar 
method  of  inquiry.  Thus  according  to  Binet  it 
is  not  yellow  but  blue  which  carries  the  day  in 
the  competition  for  the  child's  preferential  recog- 
nition. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  explanation  of 
this?  Is  it  that  children  dift'er  in  the  mode  of 
development  of  their  colour-sensibility  to  this 
45 


Masterpieces    of   Science 

extent,  or  can  it  be  that  there  is  some  fault  in 
the  method  of  investigation?  It  has  been 
recently  suggested  that  the  mode  of  testing 
colour-discrimination  by  naming  is  open  to  the 
objection  that  a  child  may  get  hold  of  one  verbal 
sound  as  "red"  more  easily  than  another  as 
"green"  and  that  this  would  facilitate  the  recog- 
nition of  the  former.  If  in  this  way  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  colour  is  aided  by  the  retention  of  its 
name,  we  must  get  rid  of  this  disturbing  element 
of  sound.  Accordingly  new  methods  of  experi- 
ment have  been  attempted  in  France  and  Amer- 
ica. Thus  Professor  Baldwin  investigates  the 
matter  by  placing  two  colours  opposite  the 
child's  two  arms  and  noting  which  is  reached 
out  to  by  right  or  left  arm,  which  is  ignored.  He 
has  tabulated  the  results  of  a  short  series  of  these 
simple  experiments  for  testing  childish  prefer- 
ence, and  supports  the  conclusions  of  Binet,  as 
against  those  of  Preyer,  that  blue  comes  in  for 
the  first  place  in  the  child's  discriminative 
recognition.*  It  is,  however,  easy  to  see  that 
this  method  has  its  own  characteristic  defects. 
Thus,  to  begin  with,  it  evidently  does  not  directly 
test  colour  discrimination  at  all,  but  the  liking  for 
or  interest  in  colours,  which  though  it  undoubt- 
edly implies  a  measure  of  discrimination  must 
not  be  confused  with  this.  And  even  as  a  test 
of  preference  it  is  very  likely  to  be  misapplied. 
Thus   supposing   that   the   two   colours   are   not 

♦"Mental    Development    in    the    Child    and  the  Race," 
chap.  III. 

46 


The   New  Study   of   Children 

equally  bright,  then  the  child  will  grasp  at  one 
rather  than  at  the  other,  because  it  is  a  brighter 
object  and  not  because  it  is  this  particular 
colour.  Again  if  one  colour  fall  more  into  the  first 
and  fresh  period  of  the  exercise  when  the  child  is 
fresh  and  active,  whereas  another  falls  more 
into  the  second  period  when  he  is  tired  and  in- 
active, the  results  would,  it  is  evident,  give  too 
much  value  to  the  former.  Similarly,  if  one 
colour  were  brought  in  after  longer  inter\'als  of 
time  than  another  it  would  have  more  attractive 
force  through  its  greater  novelty. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  how  very 
delicate  a  problem  we  have  here  to  deal  with. 
And  if  scientific  men  are  still  busy  settling  the 
point  how  the  problem  can  be  best  dealt  with, 
it  seems  hopeless  for  the  amateur  to  dabble  in 
the  matter. 

I  have  purposely  chosen  a  problem  of  peculiar 
complexity  and  delicacy  in  order  to  illustrate 
the  importance  of  that  training  which  makes  the 
mental  eye  of  the  observer  quick  to  analyse  the 
phenomenon  to  be  dealt  with  so  as  to  take  in  all 
its  conditions.  Yet  there  are  many  parts  of 
this  work  of  observing  the  child's  mind  which 
do  not  make  so  heavy  a  demand  on  technical 
ability,  but  can  be  done  by  any  intelligent  ob- 
server prepared  for  the  task  b}'  a  reasonable 
amount  of  psychological  study.  I  refer  more 
particularly  to  that  rich  and  highly  interesting 
field'  of  exploration  which  opens  up  when  the 
child  begins  to  talk.  It  is  in  the  spontaneous 
47 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

utterances  of  children,  their  first  quaint  uses  of 
words,  that  we  can  best  watch  the  play  of  the 
instinctive  tendencies  of  thought.  Children's 
talk  is  always  valuable  to  a  psychologist;  and 
for  my  part  I  would  be  glad  of  as  many  anecdotal 
records  of  their  sayings  as  I  could  collect. 

Here,  then,  there  seems  to  be  room  for  a  rela- 
tively simple  and  unskilled  kind  of  observing 
work.  Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  even  this  branch  of  child-observation  re- 
quires nothing  but  ordinary  intelligence.  To 
begin  with,  we  are  all  prone,  till  by  special  train- 
ing we  have  learned  to  check  the  inclination,  to 
read  far  too  much  of  our  older  thought  and  senti- 
ment into  children.  As  M.  Drox  observes,  "we 
are  the  dupes  of  ourselves  when  we  observe  the 
babe. " 

Again,  there  is  a  subtle  source  of  error  con- 
nected with  the  very  attitude  of  undergoing  ex- 
amination which  only  a  carefully  trained  ob- 
server of  childish  ways  will  avoid.  A  child  is 
very  quick  in  spying  whether  he  is  being  ob- 
served, and  as  soon  as  he  suspects  that  you  are 
specially  interested  in  his  talk  he  is  apt  to  try  to 
produce  an  effect.  This  wish  to  say  something 
startling,  wonderful,  or  what  not,  will,  it  is  ob- 
vious, detract  from  the  value  of  the  utterance. 

But  once  more  the  saying  which  it  is  so  easy 
to  report  has  had  its  history,  and  the  observer 
who  knows  something  of  psychology  will  look  out 
for  facts,  that  is  to  say,  experiences  of  the  child, 
suggestions  made  by  others'  words  which  throw 
48 


The   New   Study   of  Children 

light  on  the  saying.  No  fact  is  really  quite 
simple,  and  the  reason  why  some  facts  look  so 
simple  is  that  the  observer  does  not  include  in 
his  view  all  the  connections  of  the  occurrence 
which  he  is  inspecting.  The  unskilled  observer 
of  children  is  apt  to  send  scraps,  fragments  of 
facts,  which  have  not  their  natural  setting.  The 
value  of  psychological  training  is  that  it  makes 
one  as  jealously  mindful  of  wholeness  in  facts  as 
a  housewife  of  wholeness  in  her  porcelain.  It  is, 
indeed,  only  w^hen  the  whole  fact  is  before  us, 
in  well-defined  contour,  that  we  can  begin  to 
deal  with  its  meaning.  Thus  although  those 
ignorant  of  psychology  may  assist  us  in  this 
region  of  fact-finding,  they  can  never  accomplish 
that  completer  and  exacter  kind  of  observation 
which  we  dignify  by  the  name  of  Science. 

One  may  conclude  then  that  women  may  be 
fitted  to  become  valuable  labourers  in  this  new 
field  of  investigation,  if  only  they  will  acquire  a 
genuine  scientific  interest  in  babyhood,  and  a 
fair  amount  of  scientific  training.  That  a  large 
number  of  women  will  get  so  far  is  I  think  doubt- 
ful: the  sentimental  or  cesthetic  attraction  of  the 
baby  is  apt  to  be  a  serious  obstacle  to  a  cold 
matter-of-fact  examination  of  it  as  a  scientific 
specimen.  The  natural  delight  of  a  mother  in 
every  new  exhibition  of  infantile  wisdom  or 
prowess  is  liable  to  blind  her  to  the  exceedingly 
modest  significance  of  the  child's  performances 
as  seen  from  the  scientific  point  of  view.  Yet 
as  I  ha\-e  hinted,  this  very  fondness  for  infantile 
49 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

ways,  may,  if  only  the  scientific  caution  is  added, 
prove  a  valuable  excitant  to  study.  In  England, 
and  in  America,  there  are  already  a  considerable 
number  of  women  who  have  undergone  some 
serious  training  in  psychology,  and  it  may  not 
be  too  much  to  hope  that  before  long  we  shall 
have  a  band  of  mothers  and  aunts  busily  engaged 
in  noting  and  recording  the  movements  of  chil- 
dren's minds. 

I  have  assumed  here  that  what  is  wanted  is 
careful  studies  of  individual  children  as  they  may 
be  approached  in  the  nursery.  And  these 
records  of  individual  children,  after  the  pattern 
of  Preyer's  monograph,  are  I  think  our  greatest 
need.  We  are  wont  to  talk  rather  too  glibly 
about  that  abstraction,  "the  child,"  as  if  all 
children  rigorously  corresponded  to  one  pat- 
tern, of  which  pattern  we  have  a  perfect 
knowledge.  Mothers  at  least  know  that  this  is 
not  so.  Children  of  the  same  family  will  be 
found  to  differ  very  widely  (within  the  compara- 
tively narrow  field  of  childish  traits),  as,  for 
example,  in  respect  of  matter-of-factness, 
of  fancifulness,  of  inquisitiveness.  Thus,  while 
it  is  probably  true  that  most  children  at  a  certain 
age  are  greedy  of  the  pleasures  of  the  imagination, 
Nature  in  her  well-known  dislike  of  monotony 
has  taken  care  to  make  a  few  decidedly  unim- 
aginative. We  need  to  know  much  more  about 
these  variations:  and  what  will  best  help  us  here 
is  a  number  of  careful  records  of  infant  progress, 
embracing  examples  not  only  of  different  sexes 
50 


The    New   Study   of  Children 

and  temperaments,  but  also  of  different  social 
conditions  and  nationalities.  When  we  have 
such  a  collection  of  monographs  we  shall  be  in  a 
much  better  position  to  fill  out  the  hazy  outline 
of  our  abstract  conception  of  childhood  with 
definite  and  characteristic  lineaments. 

At  the  same  time  I  gladly  allow  that  other 
modes  of  obserA-ation  are  possible  and  in  their 
way  useful.  This  applies  to  older  children  who 
pass  into  the  collective  existence  of  the  school- 
class.  Here  something  like  collective  or  statisti- 
cal inquiiy  may  be  begun,  as  that  into  the  con- 
tents of  children's  minds,  their  ignorances  and 
misapprehensions  about  common  objects.  Some 
part  of  this  inquir}^  into  the  minds  of  school  chil- 
dren ma}^  ver}-  well  be  undertaken  by  an  intelli- 
gent teacher.  Thus  it  would  be  valuable  to  have 
careful  records  of  children's  progress  carried  out 
by  pre-arranged  tests,  so  as  to  get  collections  of 
examples  of  mental  activity  at  different  ages. 
More  special  lines  of  inquiry  having  a  truly  ex- 
perimental character  might  be  carried  out  by 
experts,  as  those  already  begim  with  reference 
to  children's  "span  of  apprehension,"  i.e.,  the 
number  of  digits  or  nonsense  syllables  that  can 
be  reproduced  after  a  single  hearing,  investiga- 
tions into  the  effects  of  fatigue  on  mental  pro- 
cesses, into  the  effect  of  number  of  repetitions  on 
the  certainty  of  reproduction,  into  musical  sen- 
sitiveness and  so  forth. 

Valuable  as  such  statistical  investigation  un- 
doubtedly is,  it  is  no  substitute  for  the  careful 
51 


jMasterpieces   of   Science 

methodical  study  of  the  individual  child.  This 
seems  to  me  the  greatest  desideratum  just  now. 
Since  the  teacher  needs  for  practical  reasons  to 
make  a  careful  study  of  individuals  he  might 
well  assist  here.  In  these  days  of  literary  col- 
laboration it  might  not  be  amiss  for  a  kinder- 
garten teacher  to  write  an  account  of  a  child's 
mind  in  co-operation  with  the  mother.  Such  a 
record  if  well  done  would  be  of  the  greatest  value. 
The  co-operation  of  the  mother  seems  to  me 
quite  indispensable,  since  even  where  there  is  out- 
of-class  intercourse  between  teacher  and  pupil 
the  knowledge  acquired  by  the  former  never 
equals  that  of  the  mother. 


5? 


TWINS,   THEIR  HISTORY  AS  A  CRITER- 
ION OF  THE   RELATIVE   POWERS 
OF   NATURE   AND   NURTURE 

Fraxcis   Galton 

[Francis  Gtiton,  a  cousin  of  Charles  Darwin,  has  won 
eminence  by  bringing  problems  of  human  development  t^ 
the  test  of  statistical  inquiry.  Among  his  works  are  "Her- 
editary Genius,"  "English  Men  of  Science,  Their  Nature 
and  Nurture,"  "Human  Faculty,"  and  "Natural  Inheri- 
tance." The  study  of  Twins  here  presented  is  taken  from 
"Human  Faculty,"  published  by  Macmillan  &  Co.,  London, 
18S3.] 

The  exceedingly  close  resemblance  attributed 
to  twins  has  been  the  subject  of  many  novels  and 
plays,  and  most  persons  have  felt  a  desire  to  know 
upon  what  basis  of  truth  those  works  of  fiction 
may  rest.  But  twins  have  many  other  claims  to 
attention,  one  of  which  will  be  discussed  in  the 
present  memoir.  It  is,  that  their  history  affords 
means  of  distinguishing  between  the  effects  of 
tendencies  received  at  birth,  and  of  those  that 
were  imposed  by  the  circumstances  of  their  after 
lives;  in  other  words,  between  the  effects  of 
nature  and  of  nurture.  This  is  a  subject  of  es- 
pecial importance  in  its  bearings  on  investiga- 
tions into  mental  heredity,  and  I,  for  my  part, 
have  keenly  felt  the  difficulty  of  drawing  the 
necessary  distinction  whenever  I  tried  to  esti- 
53 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

mate  the  degree  in  which  mental  ability  was, 
on  the  average,  inherited.  The  objection  to 
statistical  evidence  in  proof  of  its  inheritance  has 
always  been:  "The  persons  whom  you  compare 
may  have  lived  under  similar  social  conditions 
and  have  had  similar  adv^antagcs  of  education, 
but  such  prominent  conditions  are  only  a  small 
part  of  those  that  determine  the  future  of  each 
man's  life.  It  is  to  trifling  accidental  circum- 
stances that  the  bent  of  his  disposition  and  his 
success  are  mainly  due,  and  these  you  leave 
wholly  out  of  account — in  fact,  they  do  not  ad- 
mit of  being  tabulated,  and  therefore  your  statis- 
tics, however  plausible  at  first  sight,  are  really 
of  very  little  use.  "  No  method  of  enquiry  which 
I  have  been  able  to  carry  out — and  I  have  tried 
many  methods — is  wholly  free  from  this  objec- 
tion. I  have  therefore  attacked  the  problem 
from  the  opposite  side,  seeking  for  some  new 
method  by  which  it  would  be  possible  to  weigh 
in  just  scales  the  respective  effects  of  nature 
and  nurture,  and  to  ascertain  their  several  shares 
in  framing  the  disposition  and  intellectual  ability 
of  men.  The  life  history  of  twins  supplies  what 
I  wanted.  We  might  begin  by  enquiring  about 
twins  who  were  closely  alike  in  boyhood  and 
youth,  and  who  were  educated  together  for  many 
years,  and  learn  whether  they  subsequently  grew 
unlike,  and,  if  so,  what  the  main  causes  were 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  family,  produced 
the  dissimilarity.  In  this  way  we  may  obtain 
much  direct  evidence  of  the  kind  we  want;  but  we 
54 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a   Criterion 

can  also  obtain  yet  more  valuable  evidence  by  a 
converse  method.  We  can  enquire  into  the  his- 
tory of  twins  who  were  exceedingly  unlike  in 
childhood,  and  leam  how  far  they  became  assimi- 
lated under  the  influence  of  their  identical  nur- 
tures; having  the  same  home,  the  same  teachers, 
the  same  associates,  and  in  every  other  respect 
the  same  surroundings. 

My  materials  were  obtained  by  sending  circu- 
lars of  enqmry  to  persons  who  were  either  twins 
themselves  or  the  near  relations  of  twins.  The 
printed  questions  were  in  thirteen  groups;  the 
last  of  them  asked  for  the  addresses  of  other 
twins  known  to  the  recipient  who  might  be  likely 
to  respond  if  I  wrote  to  them.  This  happily  led 
to  a  continually  widening  circle  of  correspon- 
dence, which  I  pursued  until  enough  material 
was  accumulated  for  a  general  reconnaissance 
of  the  subject. 

The  reader  will  easily  understand  that  the 
word  "twins  "  is  a  vague  expression,  which  covers 
two  very  dissimilar  events;  the  one  correspond- 
ing to  the  progeny  of  animals  that  have  usually 
more  than  one  young  one  at  a  birth,  and  the 
other  corresponding  to  those  doiible-yolked  eggs 
that  are  due  to  two  germinal  i:;pots  in  a  single 
ovum.  The  consequence  of  this  is,  that  I  find  a 
curious  discontinuity  in  my  results.  One  would 
have  expected  that  twins  would  commonly  be 
found  to  possess  a  certain  average  likeness  to  one 
another;  that  a  few  would  greatly  exceed  that 
degree  of  Hkeness,  and  a  few  would  greatly  fall 
55 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

short  of  it;  but  this  is  not  at  all  the  case.  Twins 
may  be  divided  into  three  groups,  so  distinct  that 
there  are  not  many  intermediate  instances; 
namely,  strongly  alike,  moderately  alike,  and 
extremely  dissimilar.  When  the  twins  are  a 
boy  and  a  girl,  they  are  never  closely  alike;  in 
fact,  their  origin  never  corresponds  to  that  of  the 
above-mentioned  double-yolked  eggs. 

I  have  received  about  eighty  returns  of  cases 
of  close  similarity,  thirty-five  of  which  entered 
into  many  instructive  details.  In  a  few  of  these 
not  a  single  point  of  difference  could  be  specified. 
In  the  remainder,  the  colour  of  the  hair  and  eyes 
were  almost  always  identical;  the  height,  weight, 
and  strength  were  generally  very  nearly  so,  but 
I  have  a  few  cases  of  a  notable  difference  in  these, 
notwithstanding  the  resemblance  was  otherwise 
very  near.  The  manner  and  address  of  the 
thirty-five  pairs  of  twins  is  usually  described  as 
being  very  similar,  though  there  often  exists  a 
dift"erence  of  expression  familiar  to  near  relatives 
but  unperceived  by  strangers.  The  intonation 
of  the  voice  when  speaking  is  commonly  the 
same,  but  it  frequently  happens  that  the  twins 
sing  in  different  keys.  Most  singularly,  that 
one  point  in  which  similarity  is  rare  is  the  hand- 
writing. I  cannot  account  for  this,  considering 
how  strongly  handwriting  runs  in  families,  but  I 
am  sure  of  the  fact.  I  have  only  one  case  in 
which  nobody,  not  even  the  twins  themselves, 
could  distinguish  their  own  notes  of  lectures,  etc. ; 
barely  two  or  three  in  which  the  hand-writing 
56 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a   Criterion 

was  undistinguishable  by  others,  and  only  a  few  in 
which  it  was  described  as  closely  alike.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  have  many  in  which  it  is  stated  to 
be  unlike,  and  some  in  which  it  is  alluded  to  as 
the  only  point  of  difference. 

One  of  my  enquiries  was  for  anecdotes  as  re- 
gards the  mistakes  made  by  near  relatives  be- 
tween the  twins.  They  are  numerous,  but  not 
very  varied  in  character.  When  the  twins  are 
children,  they  have  commonly  to  be  distinguished 
by  ribbons  tied  round  their  wrist  or  neck;  never- 
theless the  one  is  sometimes  fed,  physicked,  and 
whipped  by  mistake  for  the  other,  and  the  de- 
scription of  these  little  domestic  catastrophes 
is  usually  given  to  me  by  the  mother,  in  a  phrase- 
ology that  is  somewhat  touching  b)"  reason  of  its 
seriousness.  I  have  one  case  in  which  a  doubt 
remains  whether  the  children  were  not  changed 
in  their  bath,  and  the  presumed  A  is  not  really  B, 
and  vice  versa.  In  another  case  an  artist  was 
engaged  on  the  portraits  of  twins  who  were  be- 
tween three  and  four  years  of  age;  he  had  to  lay 
aside  his  work  for  three  weeks,  and,  on  resuming 
it,  could  not  tell  to  which  child  the  respective 
likenesses  he  had  in  hand  belonged.  The  mis- 
takes are  less  numerous  on  the  part  of  the  mother 
during  the  boyhood  and  girlhood  of  the  twins, 
but  almost  as  frequent  on  the  part  of  strangers. 
I  have  many  instances  of  tutors  being  unable  to 
distinguish  their  twin  pupils.  Thus,  two  girls 
used  regularly  to  impose  on  their  music  teacher 
when  one  of  Ihcm  wanted  a  whc^le  holiday;  they 
57 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

had  their  lessons  at  separate  hours,  and  the  one 
girl  sacrificed  herself  to  receive  two  lessons  on 
the  same  day,  while  the  other  one  enjoyed  her- 
self. Here  is  a  brief  and  comprehensive  account : 
"Exactly  alike  in  all,  their  schoolmasters  never 
could  tell  them  apart;  at  dancing  parties  they 
constantly  changed  partners  without  discovery; 
their  close  resemblance  is  scarcely  diminished 
by  age."  The  following  is  a  typical  school-boy 
anecdote :  Two  twins  were  fond  of  playing  tricks, 
and  complaints  were  frequently  made;  but  the 
boys  would  never  own  which  was  the  guilty  one, 
and  the  complainants  were  never  certain  which 
of  the  two  he  was.  One  head  master  used  to  say 
he  would  never  flog  the  innocent  for  the  guilty, 
and  another  used  to  flog  both.  No  less  than 
nine  anecdotes  have  reached  me  of  a  twin  seeing 
his  or  her  reflection  in  a  looking-glass,  and  ad- 
dressing it,  in  the  belief  it  was  the  other  twin  in 
person.  1  have  inany  anecdotes  of  mistakes 
when  the  twins  were  nearly  grown  up.  Thus: 
"Amusing  scenes  occurred  at  college  when  one 
twin  came  to  visit  the  other;  the  porter  on  one 
occasion  refused  to  let  the  visitor  out  of  the  col- 
lege gates,  for,  though  they  stood  side  by  side,  he 
professed  ignorance  as  to  which  he  ought  to 
allow  to  depart." 

Children  are  usually  quick  in  distinguishing 
between  their  parents  and  his  or  her  twin :  but  I 
have  two  cases  to  the  contrary.  Thus,  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  twin  says:  "Such  was  the  marvellous 
similarity  of  their  features,  voice,  manner,  etc. 
58 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a    Criterion 

that  I  remember,  as  a  child,  being  very  much 
puzzled,  and  I  think,  had  my  aunt  lived  much 
with  us,  I  should  have  ended  by  thinking  I  had 
two  mothers."  The  other,  a  father  of  twins, 
remarks:  "We  were  extremely  alike,  and  are  so 
at  this  moment,  so  much  so  that  our  children  up 
to  five  and  six  years  old  did  not  know  us 
apart.  " 

I  have  four  or  five  instances  of  doubt  during 
an  engagement  of  marriage.  Thus:  "A  married 
first,  but  both  twins  met  the  lady  together  for  the 
first  time,  and  fell  in  love  with  her  there  and  then. 
A  managed  to  see  her  home  and  to  gain  her  affec- 
tion, though  B  went  sometimes  courting  in  his 
place,  and  neither  the  lady  nor  her  parents  could 
tell  which  was  which. ' '  I  have  also  a  German  letter, 
written  in  quaint  terms,  about  twin  brothers 
who  married  sisters,  but  could  not  easily  be  dis- 
tinguished by  them.  In  the  well-known  novel 
by  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins  of  "Poor  Miss  Finch,"  the 
blind  girl  distinguishes  the  twin  she  loves  by  the 
touch  of  his  hand,  which  gives  her  a  thrill  that 
the  touch  of  the  other  brother  does  not.  Philos- 
ophers have  not.  I  believe,  as  yet  investigated 
the  conditions  of  such  thrills;  but  I  have  a  case 
in  which  Miss  Finch's  test  would  have  failed. 
Two  persons,  both  friends  of  a  certain  twin  lady, 
told  me  that  she  had  frequently  remarked  to 
them  that  "kissing  her  twin  sister  was  not  like 
kissing  her  other  sisters,  but  like  kissing  herself — 
her  own  hand,  for  example." 

It  would  be  an  interesting  experiment  for 
59 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

twins  who  were  closely  alike,  to  try  how  far  dogs 
could  distinguish  between  them  by  scent. 

I  have  a  few  anecdotes  of  strange  mistakes 
made  between  twins  in  adult  life.  Thus,  an 
officer  writes:  "On  one  occasion  when  I  re- 
turned from  foreign  service  my  father  turned  to 
me  and  said,  'I  thought  you  were  in  London,' 
thinking  I  was  my  brother — yet  he  had  not  seen 
me  for  nearly  four  years — our  resemblance  was 
so  great.  " 

The  next  and  last  anecdote  I  shall  give  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  remarkable  of  those  that  I 
have:  it  was  sent  me  by  the  brother  of  the  twins, 
who  were  in  middle  life  at  the  time  of  its  occur- 
rence: "A  was  again  coming  home  from  India, 
on  leave;  the  ship  did  not  arrive  for  some  days 
after  it  was  due;  the  twin  brother  B  had  come 
up  from  his  quarters  to  receive  A,  and  their  old 
mother  was  very  nervous.  One  morning  A 
rushed  in,  saying,  'Oh,  mother,  how  are  you?" 
Her  answer  was,  'No,  B,  it's  a  bad  joke;  you 
know  how  anxious  I  am  ' '  and  it  was  a  little  time 
before  A  could  persuade  her  that  he  was  the  real 
man.  " 

Enough  has  been  said  to  prove  that  an  ex- 
tremely close  personal  resemblance  frequently 
exists  between  twins  of  the  same  sex;  and  that, 
although  the  resemblance  usually  diminishes  as 
they  grow  into  manhood  and  womanhood,  some 
cases  occur  in  which  the  resemblance  is  lessened 
in  a  hardly  perceptible  degree.  It  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  divergence  of  develop- 
60 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a   Criterion 

ment,  when  it  occurs,  need  not  be  ascribed  to 
the  effect  of  different  nurtures,  but  that  it  is  quite 
possible  that  it  may  be  due  to  the  appearance  of 
qualities  inherited  at  birth,  though  dormant, 
like  gout,  in  early  life.     To  this  I  shall  recur. 

There  is  a  curious  feature  in  the  character  of 
the  resemblance  between  twins,  which  has  been 
alluded  to  by  a  few  correspondents:  it  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  following  quotations.  A 
mother  of  twins  says:  "There  seems  to  be  a  sort 
of  interchangeable  likeness  in  expression,  that 
often  gave  to  each  the  affect  of  being  more  like 
his  brother  than  himself."  Again,  two  twin 
brothers,  writing  to  me,  after  analysing  their 
points  of  resemblance,  which  are  close  and  num- 
erous, and  pointing  out  certain  shades  of  differ- 
ence, add:  "These  seem  to  have  marked  us 
through  life,  though  for  a  while  when  we  were 
first  separated,  the  one  to  go  to  business,  and  the 
other  to  college,  our  respective  characters  were 
inverted;  we  both  think  that  at  that  time  we  each 
ran  into  the  character  of  the  other.  The  proof  of 
this  consists  in  our  own  recollections,  in  our  cor- 
respondence by  letter,  and  in  the  views  which  we 
then  took  of  matters  in  which  we  were  interested. ' ' 
In  explanation  of  this  apparent  interchangeable- 
ness,  we  must  recollect  that  no  character  is 
simple,  and  that  in  twins  who  strongly  resemble 
each  other  every  expression  in  the  one  may  be 
matched  by  a  corresponding  expression  in  the 
other,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  same  ex- 
pression should  be  the  dominant  one  in  both 
61 


]\Iasterpieces   of   Science 

cases.  Now  it  is  by  their  dominant  expressions 
that  we  should  distinguish  between  the  twins; 
consequently  when  one  twin  has  temporarily 
the  expression  which  is  the  dominant  one  in  his 
brother,  he  is  apt  to  be  mistaken  for  him.  There 
are  also  cases  where  the  development  of  the  two 
twins  is  not  strictly  by  equal  steps;  they  reach 
the  same  goal  at  the  same  time,  but  not  by 
identical  stages.  Thus;  A  is  bom  the  larger, 
then  B  overtakes  and  surpasses  A,  the  end  being 
that  the  twins  become  closely  alike.  This  pro- 
cess would  aid  in  giving  an  interchangeable 
likeness  at  certain  periods  of  their  growth,  and 
is  undoubtedly  due  to  nature  more  frequently 
than  to  nurture. 

Among  my  thirty-five  detailed  cases  of  close 
similarity,  there  are  no  less  than  seven  in  which 
both  twins  suffered  from  some  special  ailment 
or  had  some  exceptional  peculiarity.  One  twin 
writes  that  she  and  her  sister  "have  both  the 
defect  of  not  being  able  to  come  down  stairs 
quickly,  which,  however,  was  not  bom  with 
them,  but  came  on  at  the  age  of  twenty. "  An- 
other pair  of  twins  have  a  slight  congenital  flexure 
of  one  of  the  joints  of  the  little  finger:  it  was  in- 
herited from  a  grandmother,  but  neither  parents, 
nor  brothers,  nor  sisters  show  the  least  trace  of 
it.  In  another  case,  one  was  bom  ruptured,  and 
the  other  became  so  at  six  months  old.  Two 
twins  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  were  attacked 
by  toothache,  and  the  same  tooth  had  to  be  ex- 
tracted in  each  case.  There  are  curious  and  close 
62 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a   Criterion 

correspondences  mentioned  in  the  falling  off  of 
the  hair.  Two  cases  are  mentioned  of  death 
from  the  same  disease ;  one  of  which  is  very  affect- 
ing. The  outline  of  the  ston,^  was  that  the  twins 
were  closely  alike  and  singularly  attached,  and 
had  identical  tastes;  they  both  obtained  Govern- 
ment clerkships,  and  kept  house  together,  when 
one  sickened  and  died  of  Bright 's  disease,  and 
the  other  also  sickened  of  the  same  disease  and 
died  seven  months  later. 

In  no  less  than  nine  out  of  the  thirty-five  cases 
does  it  appear  that  both  twins  are  apt  to  sicken 
at  the  same  time.  This  implies  so  intimate  a 
constitutional  resemblance,  that  it  is  proper  to 
give  some  quotations  in  evidence.  Thus,  the 
father  of  two  twins  says:  "Their  general  health 
is  closely  alike ;  whenever  one  of  them  has  an  ill- 
ness the  other  invariably  has  the  same  within  a 
day  or  two,  and  they  usually  recover  in  the 
same  order.  Such  has  been  the  case  with  whoop- 
ing cough,  chicken-pox,  and  measles;  also  with 
slight  bilious  attacks,  which  they  have  succes- 
sively. Latterh^  they  had  a  feverish  attack  at  the 
same  time. "  Another  parent  of  twins  says:  "If 
anything  ails  one  of  them,  identical  symptoms 
nearly  always  appear  in  the  other:  this  has  been 
singularly  visible  in  two  instances  during  the  last 
two  months.  Thus,  when  in  London,  one  fell  ill 
with  a  violent  attack  of  dysentery,  and  within 
twenty-four  hours  the  other  had  precisely  the 
same  symptoms.  " 

A  medical  man  writes  of  twins  with  whom  he 
63 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

is  well  acquainted:  "Whilst  I  knew  them,  for  a 
period  of  two  years,  there  was  not  the  slightest 
tendency  towards  a  difference  in  body  or  mind; 
external  influences  seemed  powerless  to  produce 
any  dissimilarity."  The  mother  of  two  other 
twins,  after  describing  how  they  were  ill  simul- 
taneously up  to  the  age  of  fifteen,  adds,  that  they 
shed  their  first  milk  teeth  within  a  few  hours  of 
each  other. 

Trousseau  has  a  very  remarkable  case  (in  the 
chapter  on  Asthma)  in  his  important  work, 
"Clinique  Medicale.  "  It  was  quoted  at  length  in 
the  original  French  in  Mr.  Darwin's  "Variation 
Under  Domestication,  "  vol.  ii.  p.  252.  The 
following  is  a  translation : 

"I  attended  twin  brothers  so  extraordinarily 
alike,  that  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  tell  which 
was  which  without  seeing  them  side  by  side. 
But  their  physical  likeness  extended  still  deeper 
for  they  had,  so  to  speak,  a  yet  more  remarkable 
pathological  resemblance.  Thus,  one  of  them, 
whom  I  saw  at  the  Neothermes  at  Paris,  suffering 
from  rheumatic  ophthalmia,  said  to  me,  'At  this 
instant,  my  brother  must  be  having  an  ophthal- 
mia like  mine;'  and,  as  I  had  exclaimed  against 
such  an  assertion,  he  showed  me  a  few  days  after- 
wards a  letter  just  received  by  him  from  his 
brother,  who  was  at  that  time  at  Vienna,  and  who 
expressed  himself  in  these  words:  T  have  my 
ophthalmia;  you  must  be  having  yours.'  How- 
ever singular  this  story  may  appear,  the  fact  is 
none  the  less  exact:  it  has  not  been  told  to  me  by 
64 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a   Criterion 

others,  but  I  have  seen  it  myself;  and  I  have  seen 
other  analogous  cases  in  my  practice.  These 
twins  were  also  asthmatic,  and  asthmatic  to  a 
frightful  degree.  Though  born  in  Marseilles, 
they  never  were  able  to  stay  in  that  town,  where 
their  business  affairs  required  them  to  go,  with- 
out having  an  attack.  Still  more  strange,  it  was 
sufficient  for  them  to  get  away  only  as  far  as 
Toulon  in  order  to  be  cured  of  the  attack  caught 
at  Marseilles.  They  travelled  continually,  and 
in  all  countries,  on  business  affairs,  and  they  re- 
marked that  certain  localities  were  extremely 
hurtful  to  them,  and  that  in  others  they  were  free 
from  all  asthmatic  symptoms.  " 

I  do  not  like  to  pass  over  here  a  most  dramatic 
tale  in  the  rsychologie  Morhide  of  Dr.  J.  Moreau 
(de  Tours),  Medecin  de  I'Hospice  de  Bicetre. 
Paris,  1859,  p.  172.  He  speaks  "of  two  twin 
brothers  who  had  been  confined,  on  account  of 
monomania,  at  Bicetre.  .  .  .  Physically  the 
two  young  men  are  so  nearly  alike  that  the  one 
is  easily  mistaken  for  the  other.  Morally,  their 
resemblance  is  no  less  complete,  and  is  most  re- 
markable in  its  details.  Thus,  their  dominant 
ideas  are  absolutely  the  same.  They  both  con- 
sider themselves  subject  to  imaginary  persecu- 
tions ;  the  same  enemies  have  sworn  their  destruc- 
tion, and  employ  the  same  means  to  effect  it. 
Both  have  hallucinations  of  hearing.  They  are 
both  of  them  melancholy  and  morose;  they  never 
address  a  word  to  an3'body,  and  will  hardly 
answer  the  questions  that  others  address  to  them. 
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Masterpieces   of   Science 

They  always  keep  apart  and  never  communicate 
with  one  another.  An  extremely  curious  fact 
which  has  been  frequently  noted  by  the  superin- 
tendents of  their  section  of  the  hospital,  and  by 
myself,  is  this:  From  time  to  time,  at  very  ir- 
regular intervals  of  two,  three,  and  many  months, 
without  appreciable  cause,  and  by  the  purely 
spontaneous  effect  of  their  illness,  a  very  marked 
change  takes  place  in  the  condition  of  the  two 
brothers.  Both  of  them,  at  the  same  time,  and 
often  on  the  same  day,  rouse  themselves  from 
their  habitual  stupor  and  prostration ;  they  make 
the  same  complaints,  and  they  come  of  their  own 
accord  to  the  physician,  with  an  urgent  request 
to  be  liberated.  I  have  seen  this  strange  thing 
occur,  even  when  they  were  some  miles  apart, 
the  one  being  at  Bicetre  and  the  other  living  at 
Sainte-Anne.  " 

Dr.  Moreau  ranked  as  a  very  considerable 
medical  authority,  but  I  cannot  wholly  accept 
this  strange  story  without  fuller  information. 
Dr.  Moreau  writes  it  in  too  off-hand  a  way  to 
carry  the  conviction  that  he  had  investigated 
the  circumstances  with  the  sceptic  spirit  and 
scrupulous  exactness  whifh  so  strange  a  phe- 
nomenon would  have  required.  If  full  and  pre- 
cise notes  of  the  case  exist,  they  certainly  ought 
to  be  published  at  length.  I  sent  a  copy  of  this 
passage  to  the  principal  authorities  among  the 
physicians  to  the  insane  in  England,  asking  if 
they  had  ever  witnessed  any  similar  case.  In 
reply,  I  have  received  three  noteworthy  instances, 
66 


Twins,    Their    History    as   a    Criterion 

but  none  to  be  compared  in  their  exact  parallel- 
ism with  that  just  given.  The  details  of  these 
three  cases  are  painful,  and  it  is  not  necessary 
to  my  general  purpose  that  I  should  further 
allude  to  them. 

There  is  another  curious  French  case  of  insan- 
ity in  twins,  which  was  pointed  out  to  me  by 
Professor  Paget,  described  by  Dr.  Baume  in  the 
Annates  ]\Iedico-Psychologiques,  4  scrie,  vol.  i., 
1863,  p.  312,  of  which  the  following  is  an  abstract. 
The  original  contains  a  few  more  details,  but  it  is 
too  long  to  qtiote:  Francois  and  Martin,  fifty 
years  of  age,  worked  as  railroad  contractors  be- 
tween Quimper  and  Chateaulin.  Martin  had 
twice  had  slight  attacks  of  insanity.  On  January 
15,  a  box  in  which  the  twins  deposited  their  sav- 
ings was  robbed.  On  the  night  of  January  23-4 
both  Francois  (who  lodged  at  Quimper)  and 
Martin  (who  lived  with  his  wife  and  children  at 
St.  Lorette,  two  leagues  from  Quimper)  had  the 
same  dream  at  the  same  hour,  three  a.  m.,  and 
both  awoke  with  a  violent  start,  calling  out,  "I 
have  caught  the  thief  !  I  have  caught  the  thief  ! 
they  are  doing  injurs'  to  my  brother!"  They 
were  both  of  them  extremely  agitated,  and  gave 
way  to  similar  extravagances,  dancing  and  leap- 
ing. Martin  sprang  on  his  grandchild,  declaring 
that  he  was  the  thief,  and  would  have  strangled 
him  if  he  had  not  been  prevented:  he  then  be- 
came steadily  worse,  complained  of  violent  pains 
in  his  head,  went  out  of  doors  on  some  excuse, 
and  tried  to  drown  himself  in  the  River  Steir, 
67 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

btit  was  forcibly  stopped  by  his  son,  who  had 
watched  and  followed  him.  He  was  then  taken 
to  an  asylum  by  gendarmes,  where  he  died  in 
three  days.  Francois,  on  his  part  calmed  down 
on  the  morning  of  the  24th,  and  employed  the 
day  in  enquiring  about  the  robbery.  By  a  strange 
chance  he  crossed  his  brother's  path  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  latter  was  struggling  with  the 
gendarmes;  then  he  himself  became  maddened, 
giving  way  to  extravagant  gestures  and  making 
incoherent  proposals  (similar  to  those  of  his 
brother).  He  then  asked  to  be  bled,  which  was 
done,  and  afterwards,  declaring  himself  to  be 
better,  went  out  on  the  pretext  of  executing  some 
commission,  but  really  to  drown  himself  in  the 
River  Steir,  wfiich  he  actually  did,  at  the  very 
spot  where  Martin  had  attempted  to  do  the  same 
thing  a  few  hours  previously. 

The  next  point  which  I  shall  mention,  in  illus- 
tration of  the  extremely  close  resemblance  be- 
tween certain  twins,  is  the  similarity  in  the  as- 
sociation of  their  ideas.  No  less  than  eleven  out 
of  the  thirty-five  cases  testify  to  this.  They 
make  the  same  remarks  on  the  same  occasion, 
begin  singing  the  same  song  at  the  same  moment, 
and  so  on;  or  one  would  commence  a  sentence, 
and  the  other  would  finish  it.  An  observant 
friend  graphically  described  to  me  the  effect  pro- 
duced on  her  by  two  such  twins  whom  she  had 
met  casually.  She  said:  "Their  teeth  grew 
alike,  they  spoke  alike  and  together,  and  said  the 
same  things,  and  seemed  just  like  one  person." 
68 


Twins,    Their    History    as    a    Criterion 

One  of  the  most  curious  anecdotes  that  I  have  re- 
ceived concerning  this  similarity  of  ideas  was  that 
one  twin  A,  who  happened  to  be  at  a  town  in 
Scotland,  bought  a  set  of  champagne  glasses  which 
caught  his  attention,  as  a  surprise  for  his  brother 
B;  while  at  the  same  time,  B,  being  in  England, 
bought  a  similar  set  of  precisely  the  same  pattern 
as  a  surprise  for  A.  Other  anecdotes  of  a  like 
kind  have  reached  me  about  these  twins. 

The  last  point  to  which  I  shall  allude  regards 
the  tastes  and  dispositions  of  the  thirty-five  pairs 
of  twins.  In  sixteen  cases — that  is.  in  nearly  one 
half  of  them — these  were  described  as  closely 
similar;  in  the  remaining  nineteen  they  were 
much  alike,  but  subject  to  certain  named  differ- 
ences. These  differences  belonged  almost  wholly 
to  such  groups  of  qualities  as  these:  The  one 
was  the  more  vigorous,  fearless,  energetic;  the 
other  was  gentle,  clinging,  and  timid:  or,  again, 
the  one  was  more  ardent,  the  other  more  calm  and 
gentle;  or  again,  the  one  was  the  more  indepen- 
dent, original,  and  self-contained;  the  other  the 
more  generous,  hasty,  and  vivacious.  In  short 
the  difference  was  always  that  of  intensity  or 
energ\'  in  one  or  other  of  its  protean  forms:  it  did 
not  extend  more  deeply  into  the  structure  of  the 
characters.  The  more  vivacious  might  be  sub- 
dued by  ill  health,  until  he  assumed  the  charac- 
ter of  the  other;  or  the  latter  might  be  raised  by 
excellent  health  to  that  of  the  former.  The  differ- 
ence is  in  the  key-note,  not  in  the  melody. 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  concerning 
69 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

the  similar  dispositions  of  the  twins,  the  similar- 
ity in  the  associations  of  their  ideas,  of  their 
special  ailments,  and  of  their  illnesses  generally, 
that  the  resemblances  are  not  superficial,  but  ex- 
tremely intimate.  I  have  only  two  cases  alto- 
gether of  a  strong  bodily  resemblance  being  ac- 
companied by  mental  diversity,  and  one  case 
only  of  the  converse  kind.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  conditions  which  govern  extreme 
likeness  between  twins  are  not  the  same  as  those 
between  ordinary  brothers  and  sisters  (I  may 
have  hereafter  to  write  further  about  this) ;  and 
that  it  would  be  wholly  incorrect  to  generalize 
from  what  has  just  been  said  about  the  twins, 
that  mental  and  bodily  likeness  are  invariably 
co-ordinate;  such  being  by  no  means  the  case. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  that 
the  phrase  "close  similarity"  is  no  exaggeration, 
and  to  realize  the  value  of  the  evidence  about  to 
be  adduced.  Here  are  thirty-five  cases  of  twins 
who  were  "closely  alike"  in  body  and  mind  when 
they  were  young,  and  who  have  been  reared  ex- 
actly alike  up  to  their  early  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. Since  then  the  conditions  of  their  lives 
have  changed;  what  change  of  conditions  has 
produced  the  most  variation  ? 

It  was  w^ith  no  little  interest  that  I  searched 
the  records  of  the  thirty-five  cases  for  an  answer; 
and  they  gave  an  answer  that  was  not  altogether 
direct,  but  it  was  very  distinct,  and  not  at  all 
what  I  had  expected.  They  showed  me  that  in 
some  cases  the  resemblance  of  body  and  mind 
70 


Twins,   Their    History    as    a    Criterion 

had  continued  unaltered  up  to  old  age,  notwith- 
standing very  different  conditions  of  life;  and 
they  showed  in  the  other  cases  that  the  parents 
ascribed  such  dissimilarity  as  there  was  wholly, 
or  almost  wholly,  to  some  form  of  illness.  In 
four  cases  it  was  scarlet  fever;  in  one  case,  typhus; 
in  one,  a  slight  effect  was  ascribed  to  a  nervous 
fever:  then  I  find  effects  from  an  Indian  climate; 
from  an  illness  (unnamed)  of  nine  months' 
duration;  from  varicose  veins;  from  a  bad  frac- 
ture of  the  leg,  which  prevented  all  active  exer- 
cise afterwards;  and  there  were  three  other  cases 
of  ill  health.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  quote  one 
of  the  returns;  in  this  the  father  writes: 

"At  birth  they  were  exactly  alike,  except  that 
one  was  born  with  a  bad  varicose  affection,  the 
effect  of  which  had  been  to  prevent  any  violent 
exercise,  such  as  dancing,  or  running,  and.  as 
she  has  grown  older,  to  make  her  more  serious 
and  thoughtful.  Had  it  not  been  for  this  in- 
firmity, I  think  the  two  would  have  been  as  ex- 
actly alike  as  it  is  possible  for  two  women  to  be, 
both  mentally  and  physically;  even  now  they 
are  constantly  mistaken  for  one  another." 

In  only  a  very  few  cases  is  there  some  allusion 
to  the  dissimilarity  being  partly  duo  to  the  com- 
bined action  of  many  small  influences,  and  in  no 
case  is  it  largely,  much  less  wholly,  ascribed  to 
that  cause.  In  not  a  single  instance  have  I  met 
with  a  w^ord  about  the  growing  dissimilarity  be- 
ing due  to  the  action  of  the  firm,  free  will  of  one 
or  both  of  the  twins,  which  had  triumphed  over 
71 


Masterpieces  of   Science 

natural  tendencies;  and  yet  a  large  proportion 
of  my  correspondents  happen  to  be  clergymen 
whose  bent  of  mind  is  opposed,  as  I  feel  assured 
from  the  tone  of  their  letters,  to  a  necessitarian 
view  of  life. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  a  growing  diversity 
between  twins  may  be  ascribed  to  the  tardy  de- 
velopment of  naturally  diverse  qualities;  but  we 
have  a  right,  upon  the  evidence  I  have  received, 
to  go  further  than  this.  We  have  seen  that  a 
few  twins  retain  their  close  resemblance  through 
life;  in  other  words,  instances  do  exist  of  thorough 
similarity  of  nature,  and  in  these  external  cir- 
cumstances do  not  create  dissimilarity.  There- 
fore, in  those  cases,  where  there  is  a  growing 
diversity,  and  where  no  external  cause  can  be  as- 
signed either  by  the  twins  themselves  or  by  their 
family  for  it.  we  may  feel  sure  that  it  must  be 
chiefly  or  altogether  due  to  a  want  of  thorough 
similarity  in  their  nature.  Na}'  further,  in  some 
cases  it  is  distinctly  affirmed  that  the  growing 
dissimilarity  can  be  accotmted  for  in  no  other 
way.  We  may  therefore  broadly  conclude  that 
the  only  circumstance,  within  the  range  of  those 
by  which  persons  of  similar  conditions  of  life  are 
affected,  capable  of  producing  a  marked  effect 
on  the  character  of  adults,  is  illness  or  some  acci- 
dent which  causes  physical  infirmity.  The 
twins  who  closely  resembled  each  other  in  child- 
hood and  early  youth,  and  were  reared  under 
not  very  dissimilar  conditions,  either  grow  un- 
like through  the  development  of  natural  charac- 
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Twins,    Their    History    as    a    Criterion 

terislics  which  had  lain  dormant  at  first,  or  else 
they  continue  their  Hves,  keeping  time  like  two 
watches,  hardly  to  be  thrown  out  of  accord  ex- 
cept by  some  physical  jar.  Nature  is  far  stronger 
than  nurture  within  the  limited  range  that  I  ha\-c 
been  careful  to  assign  to  the  latter. 

The  effect  of  illness,  as  shown  by  these  replies, 
is  great,  and  well  deserves  further  consideration. 
It  appears  that  the  constitution  of  youth  is  not 
so  elastic  as  v/e  are  apt  to  think,  but  that  an 
attack,  say  of  scarlet  fever,  leaves  a  permanent 
mark,  easil}'  to  be  measured  by  the  present 
method  of  comparison.  This  recalls  an  im- 
pression made  strongly  on  my  mind  several 
years  ago  by  the  sight  of  a  few  curves  drawn  by 
a  mathematical  friend.  He  took  monthly 
measurements  of  the  circumference  of  his  chil- 
dren's heads  during  the  first  few  years  of  their 
lives,  and  he  laid  down  the  successive  measure- 
ments on  the  successive  lines  of  a  piece  of  ruled 
paper,  by  taking  the  edge  of  the  paper  as  a  base. 
He  then  joined  the  free  ends  of  the  lines,  and  so 
obtained  a  curve  of  growth.  These  curves  had, 
on  the  whole,  that  regularity  of  sweep  that  might 
have  been  expected,  but  each  of  them  showed 
occasional  halts,  like  the  landing  places  on  a  long 
flight  of  stairs.  The  development  had  been  ar- 
rested by  something,  and  was  not  made  up  for 
by  after  growth.  Now.  on  the  same  piece  of 
paper  my  friend  had  also  registered  the  various 
infantile  illnesses  of  the  children,  and  correspond- 
ing to  each  illness  was  one  of  these  halts.  There 
73 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

remained  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that,  if  these 
illnesses  had  been  warped  off,  the  development 
of  the  children  would  have  been  increased  by 
almost  the  precise  amount  lost  in  these  halts. 
In  other  words,  the  disease  had  drawn  largely 
upon  the  capital,  and  not  only  on  the  income, 
of  their  constitutions.  I  hope  these  remarks 
may  induce  some  men  of  science  to  repeat  similar 
experiments  on  their  children  of  the  future. 
They  may  compress  two  years  of  a  child's  history 
on  one  side  of  a  ruled  half-sheet  of  foolscap  paper 
if  they  cause  each  successive  line  to  stand  for  a 
successive  month,  beginning  from  the  birth  of 
the  child;  and  if  they  mark  off  the  measurements 
by  laying,  not  the  o-inch  division  of  the  tape 
against  the  edge  of  the  pages,  but,  say,  the  lo- 
inch  division — in  order  to  economize  space. 

The  steady  and  pitiless  march  of  the  hidden 
weaknesses  in  our  constitutions,  through  illness 
to  death,  is  painfully  revealed  by  these  histories 
of  twins.  We  are  too  apt  to  look  upon  illness 
and  death  as  capricious  events,  and  there  are 
some  who  ascribe  them  to  the  direct  effect  of 
supernatural  interference,  whereas  the  fact  of 
the  maladies  of  two  twins  being  continually 
alike,  shows  that  illness  and  death  are  necessary 
incidents  in  a  regular  sequence  of  constitutional 
changes,  beginning  at  birth,  upon  which  external 
circumstances  have,  on  the  whole,  very  small 
effect.  In  cases  where  the  maladies  of  the  twins 
are  continually  alike,  the  clock  of  life  inoves 
regularly  on,  governed  by  internal  mechanism. 
74 


Twins,    Their    History    as    a    Criterion 

When  the  hand  approaches  the  hour  mark,  there 
is  a  sudden  chck,  followed  by  a  whirling  of  wheels ; 
at  the  culminating  moment,  the  stroke  falls. 
Necessitarians  may  derive  new  arguments  from 
the  life  histories  of  twins. 

We  will  now  consider  the  converse  side  of  our 
subject.  Hitherto  we  have  investigated  cases 
where  the  similarity  at  first  was  close,  but  after- 
wards became  less:  now  we  will  examine  those  in 
which  there  was  great  dissimilarity  at  first,  and 
will  see  how  far  an  identity  of  nurture  in  child- 
hood and  youth  tended  to  assimilate  them.  As 
has  been  already  mentioned,  there  is  a  large  pro- 
portion of  cases  of  sharply  contrasted  character- 
istics, both  of  body  and  mind,  among  twins. 
I  have  twenty  such  cases,  given  with  much  de- 
tail. It  is  a  fact,  that  extreme  dissimilarity, 
such  as  existed  between  Esau  and  Jacob,  is  a  no 
less  marked  peculiarity  in  twins  of  the  same  sex, 
than  extreme  similarity.  On  this  curious  point, 
and  on  much  else  in  the  history  of  twins,  I  have 
many  remarks  to  make,  but  this  is  not  the  place 
to  make  them. 

The  evidence  given  by  the  twenty  cases  above 
mentioned  is  absolutely  accordant,  so  that  the 
character  of  the  whole  may  be  exactly  conveyed 
by  two  or  three  quotations.  One  parent  says: 
"They  have  had  exactly  the  same  nurture  ivom 
their  birth  up  to  the  present  time;  they  are  both 
perfectly  healthy  and  strong,  yet  they  are  other- 
wise as  dissimilar  as  two  boys  could  be,  physi- 
cally, mentally,  and  in  their  emotional  nature." 
75 


Masterpieces   of  Science 

Here  is  another  case:  "I  can  answer  most  de- 
cidedly that  the  twins  have  been  perfectly  dis- 
similar in  character,  habits,  and  likeness  from 
the  moment  of  their  birth  to  the  present  time, 
though  they  were  nursed  by  the  same  woman, 
went  to  school  together,  and  were  never  separated 
till  the  age  of  fifteen. "  Here  again  is  one  more, 
in  which  the  father  remarks:  "They  were  curi- 
ously different  in  body  and  mind  from  their  birth. 
The  surviving  twin  (a  senior  wrangler  of  Cam.- 
bridge)  adds:  "A  fact  struck  all  our  school 
contemporaries,  that  my  brother  and  I  were 
complementary,  so  to  speak,  in  point  of  ability 
and  disposition.  He  was  contemplative,  poeti- 
cal, and  literary  to  a  remarkable  degree,  showing 
great  power  in  that  line.  I  was  practical, 
mathematical,  and  linguistic.  Between  us  we 
should  have  made  a  very  decent  sort  of  a  man. " 
I  could  quote  others  just  as  strong  as  these, 
while  I  have  not  a  single  case  in  which  my  cor- 
respondents speak  of  originally  dissimilar  charac- 
ters having  become  assimilated  through  identity 
of  nurture.  The  impression  that  all  this  evidence 
leaves  on  the  mind  is  one  of  some  wonder  whether 
nurture  can  do  anything  at  all  beyond  giving  in- 
struction and  professional  training.  It  emphat- 
ically corroborates  and  goes  far  beyond  the  con- 
clusions to  which  we  had  already  been  driven  by 
the  cases  of  similarity.  In  these,  the  causes  of 
divergence  began  to  act  about  the  period  of 
adult  life,  when  the  characters  had  become 
somewhat  fixed ;  but  here  the  causes  conducive  to 
76 


Twins,    Their    History    as    a    Criterion 

assimilation  began  to  act  from  the  earliest  mo- 
ment of  the  existence  of  the  twins,  when  the  dis- 
position was  most  pliant,  and  they  were  continu- 
ous until  the  period  of  adult  life.  There  is  no 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  nature  prevails 
enormously  over  nurture  when  the  differences  of 
nurture  do  not  exceed  what  is  commonly  to  be 
found  among  persons  of  the  same  rank  ot  society 
and  in  the  same  country.  My  only  fear  is  that 
my  evidence  seems  to  prove  too  much  and  may 
be  discredited  on  that  account,  as  it  seems  con- 
trary to  all  experience  that  nurture  should  go  for 
little.  But  experience  is  often  fallacious  in 
ascribing  great  effects  to  trifling  circum- 
stances. Many  a  person  has  amused  himself  with 
throwing  bits  of  stick  into  a  tiny  brook  and 
watching  their  progress;  how  they  are  arrested, 
first  by  one  chance  obstacle,  then  b}'  another; 
and  again,  how  their  onward  course  is  facilitated 
by  a  combination  of  circumstances.  He  might 
ascribe  much  importance  to  each  of  these  events, 
and  think  how  largely  the  destiny  of  the  stick  has 
been  governed  by  a  series  of  trifling  accidents. 
Nevertheless  all  the  sticks  succeed  in  passing 
down  the  current,  and  they  travel,  in  the  long 
run,  at  nearly  the  same  rate.  So  it  is  with  life 
in  respect  to  the  several  accidents  which  seem  to 
have  had  a  great  effect  upon  our  careers.  The 
one  element,  which  varies  in  different  individuals, 
but  is  constant  in  each  of  them,  is  the  natural 
tendency;  it  corresponds  to  the  current  in  the 
stream,  and  invariably  assorts  itself.  More 
77 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

might  be  added  on  this  matter,  and  much  might 
be  said  in  qualification  of  the  broad  conclusions 
to  which  we  have  arrived,  as  to  the  points  in 
which  education  appears  to  create  the  most  per- 
manent effect;  how  far  by  training  the  intellect 
and  how  far  by  subjecting  the  boy  to  a  higher  or 
lower  tone  of  public  opinion ;  but  this  is  foreign  to 
my  immediate  object.  The  latter  has  been  to 
show  broadly,  and,  I  trust,  convincingly,  that 
statistical  estimation  of  natural  gifts  by  a  com- 
parison of  successes  in  life,  is  not  open  to  the  ob- 
jection stated  at  the  beginning  of  this  memoir. 
We  have  only  to  take  reasonable  care  in  selecting 
our  statistics,  and  then  we  may  safely  ignore 
the  many  small  differences  in  nurture  which  are 
sure  to  have  characterized  each  individual  case. 


78 


SIGHT  IN  SAVAGES 

From  "Idle  Days  in  Patagonia  " 

William   Hexry   Hudson 

[William  Henry  Hudson  was  bom  and  for  many  years 
resided  in  Patagonia.  His  "The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata" 
and  "Idle  Days  in  Patagonia,"  both  published  by  J.  M. 
Dent  &  Co.,  London,  and  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York, 
are  among  the  most  delightful  books  of  natural  history  ever 
written.il 

A  PERSON  much  given  to  card-playing  once 
informed  me  that  ahvays  after  the  first  few 
rounds  of  a  game  he  knew  some  of  the  cards  in 
the  pack,  and  could  recognize  them  as  they  were 
being  dealt  out,  by  means  of  certain  slight  shades 
of  difference  in  the  colouring  of  the  backs.  He 
had  turned  his  attention  to  this  business  when 
ver\^  young,  and  as  he  was  close  upon  fifty  when 
he  imparted  this  interesting  piece  of  information, 
and  had  always  existed  comfortably  on  his  win- 
nings, I  saw  no  reason  to  disbelieve  what  he  told 
me.  Yet  this  very  man,  whose  vision  was  keen 
enough  to  detect  differences  in  cards  so  slight 
that  another  could  not  see  them,  even  when 
pointed  out — this  pretematurally  sharp-eyed 
individual  was  greatly  surprised  when  I  ex- 
plained to  him  that  half-a-dozen  birds  of  the 
sparrow  kind,  that  fed  in  his  courtyard,  and  sang 
79 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

and  built  their  nests  in  his  garden  and  vineyard 
and  fields,  were  not  one  but  six  distinct  species. 
He  had  never  seen  any  difference  in  them:  they 
all  had  the  same  customs,  the  same  motions;  in 
size,  colour,  and  shape  they  were  all  one;  to  his 
hearing  they  all  chirped  and  twittered  alike, 
and  warbled  the  same  song. 

And  as  it  was  with  this  man,  so,  to  some  ex- 
tent, it  is  with  all  of  us.  That  special  thing 
which  interests  us,  and  in  which  we  find  our 
profit  or  pleasure,  we  see  very  distinctly,  and 
our  memories  are  singularly  tenacious  of  its 
image;  while  other  things,  in  which  we  take  only 
a  general  interest,  or  which  are  nothing  to  us, 
are  not  seen  so  sharply,  and  soon  become  blurred 
in  memory;  and  if  there  happens  to  be  a  pretty 
close  resemblance  in  several  of  them,  as  in  the 
case  of  my  gambling  friend's  half  a  dozen  spar- 
rows, which,  like  snowfiakes,  were  "seen  rather 
than  distinguished,"  this  indistinctness  of  their 
images  on  the  eye  and  the  mind  causes  them  all 
to  appear  alike.  We  have,  as  it  were,  two 
visions — one  to  which  all  objects  appear  vividly 
and  close  to  us,  and  are  permanently  photo- 
graphed on  the  mind;  the  other  which  sees 
things  at  a  distance,  and  with  that  indistinctness 
of  outline  and  uniformity  of  colour  which  dis- 
tance gives. 

In  this  place  I  had  proposed  to  draw  on  ni)'- 
La  Plata  notebooks  for  some  amusing  illustra- 
tions of  this  fact  of  our  two  sights;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  go  so  far  afield  for  illustrations,  or 
80 


Sight   in   Savages 

to  insist  on  a  thing  so  familiar.  "The  shepherd 
knows  his  sheep,"  is  a  saying  just  as  true  of  this 
country — of  Scotland,  at  all  events — as  of  the 
far  East.  Detectives,  also  military  men  who 
take  an  interest  in  their  profession,  see  faces  more 
sharply  than  most  people,  and  remember  them 
as  distinctly  as  others  remember  the  faces  of  a 
very  limited  number  of  individuals — of  those 
they  love  or  fear  or  constantly  associate  with. 
Sailors  see  atmospheric  changes  which  are  not 
apparent  to  others;  and,  in  like  manner,  the  phy- 
sician detects  the  signs  of  malady  in  faces  which 
to  the  uninstructed  vision  seem  healthy  enough. 
And  so  on  through  the  whole  range  of  professions 
and  pursuits  which  men  have:  each  person  in- 
habits a  little  world  of  his  own,  as  it  were,  which 
to  others  is  only  part  of  the  distant  general  blue- 
ness  obscuring  all  things,  but  in  which,  to  him, 
every  object  stands  out  with  wonderful  clearness, 
and  plainly  tells  its  story. 

All  this  may  sound  very  trite,  very  trivial 
and  matter  of  common  knowledge — so  common 
as  to  be  known  to  every  schoolboy  and  to  the 
boy  that  goeth  not  to  school;  yet  it  is  because 
this  simple  familiar  fact  has  been  ignored,  or  has 
not  always  been  borne  in  mind  by  our  masters, 
that  they  have  taught  us  an  error,  namely,  that 
savages  are  our  superiors  in  visual  power,  and 
that  the  difference  is  so  great  that  ours  is  a  dim 
decaying  sense  compared  with  their  brilliant 
faculty,  and  that  only  when  we  survey  the  pros- 
pect through  powerful  field-glasses  do  we  rise  to 
81 


]\Iasterpieces   of   Science 

their  level  and  see  the  world  as  they  sec  it.  The 
truth  is  that  the  savage  sight  is  no  better  than 
ours,  although  it  might  seem  natural  enough  to 
think  the  contrary,  on  account  of  their  simple 
natural  life  in  the  desert,  which  is  always  green 
and  restful  to  the  eye,  or  supposed  to  be  so; 
and  because  they  have  no  gas  nor  even  candle- 
light to  irritate  the  visual  nerv^e,  and  do  them- 
selves no  injury  by  poring  over  miserable  books. 
Possibly,  then,  the  beginning  of  the  error  was 
in  this  preconceived  notion,  that  greenness  and 
the  absence  of  artificial  light,  with  other  con- 
ditions of  a  primitive  life,  kept  the  sight  from 
deteriorating.  The  eye's  adaptiveness  did  not 
get  sufficient  credit.  We  know  how  the  muscles 
may  be  developed  by  training,  that  the  black- 
smith and  prizefighter  have  mightier  arms  than 
others;  but  it  was  perhaps  assumed  that  the 
complex  structure  and  extreme  delicacy  of 
the  eye  would  make  it  less  adaptive  than  other 
and  coarser  organs.  Whatever  the  origin  of 
the  error  may  have  been,  it  is  certain  that  it  has 
received  the  approval  of  scientists,  and  that 
they  never  open  their  lips  on  the  subject  except 
to  give  it  fresh  confirmation.  Their  researches 
have  brought  to  light  a  great  variety  of  eye- 
troubles,  which,  in  many  cases,  are  not  trouble- 
some at  all,  until  they  are  discovered,  named 
with  a  startling  name  and  described  in  terms 
very  alarming  to  persons  of  timid  character. 
Frequently  they  are  not  maladies,  but  inherited 
defects,  like  bandy  legs,  prominent  teeth, 
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Sight  in   Savages 

crushed  toes,  tender  skin  and  numberless  other 
malformations.  That  such  eye-defects  are  as 
common  among  savages  as  among  ourselves,  I 
do  not  say,  and  to  this  matter  I  shall  return  later 
on;  but  until  the  eyes  of  savages  are  scientifically 
examined,  it  seems  a  very  bold  thing  to  say 
that  defective  colour-sense  is  due  to  the  inimical 
conditions  of  our  civilization;  for  we  know  as 
little  about  the  colour-sense  of  savages  as  we 
do  about  the  colour-sense  of  the  old  Greeks. 
That  the  savage  sight  is  vastly  more  powerful 
than  ours  was  perhaps  not  so  bold  a  thing  to 
say,  seeing  that  in  this  matter  our  teachers  were 
misled  by  travellers'  tales,  and  perhaps  by 
other  considerations,  as,  for  instance,  the  absence 
of  artificial  aids  to  sight  among  the  children  of 
nature.  The  redskin  may  be  very  old,  but  as 
he  sits  sunning  himself  before  his  wigwam  in  the 
early  morning  he  is  never  observed  to  trombone 
his  newspaper. 

The  reader  ma}-  spare  himself  the  trouble  of 
smiling,  for  this  is  not  mere  supposition;  in  this 
case  observation  came  first  and  reflection  after- 
wards, for  I  happen  to  know  something  of  savages 
from  experience,  and  when  they  were  using  their 
eyes  in  their  way  and  for  their  purposes,  I  used 
mine  for  my  purpose,  which  was  different.  It 
is  true  that  the  redskin  will  point  you  out  an 
object  in  the  distance  and  tell  its  character,  and 
it  will  be  to  your  sight  only  a  dark-coloured 
object,  which  might  be  a  bush,  or  stone,  or  animal 
of  some  large  kind,  or  even  a  house.  The  secret 
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Masterpieces  of   Science 

of  the  difference  is  that  his  eye  is  trained  and 
accustomed  to  see  certain  things,  which  he  looks 
for  and  expects  to  find.  Put  him  where  the 
conditions  are  new  to  him  and  he  will  be  at  fault; 
or  even  on  his  native  heath,  set  before  him  an 
unfamiliar  or  unexpected  object,  and  he  will 
show  no  superiority  over  his  civilized  brother. 
I  have  witnessed  one  instance  in  which  not  one 
but  five  men  were  all  at  fault  and  made  a  wrong 
guess;  while  the  one  person  of  our  party  who 
guessed  correctly,  or  saw  better  perhaps,  was  a 
child  of  civilization  and  a  reader  of  books,  and, 
what  is  perhaps  even  more,  the  descendant  of  a 
long  line  of  bookish  men.  This  amazed  me  at 
the  moment,  for  until  then  my  childlike  faith 
in  the  ideas  of  Humboldt  and  of  the  world  gen- 
erally on  the  subject  had  never  been  disturbed. 
Now  I  see  how  this  curious  thing  happened. 
The  object  was  at  such  a  distance  that  to  all  of 
us  alike  it  presented  no  definite  form,  but  was 
merely  something  dark,  standing  against  a  hoar^' 
background  of  tall  grass-plumes.  Our  guides, 
principally  regarding  its  size,  at  once  guessed  it 
^.o  be  an  animal  which  they  no  doubt  expected 
^o  find  in  that  place — namely,  a  wild  horse. 
The  other,  who  did  not  have  tha\.  training  of  the 
eye  and  mind  for  distant  objects  in  the  desert 
which  is  like  an  instinct,  and,  like  instinct,  is 
liable  to  mistakes,  and  who  carefully  studied 
its  appearance  for  himself,  pronounced  it  to 
be  a  dark  bush.  When  we  got  near  it  turned 
out  to  be  a  clump  of  tall  bulrushes,  growing  in  a 
84 


Sight   in   Savages 

place  where  they  had  no  business  to  grow,  and 
burnt  by  drought  and  frosts  to  so  dark  a  brown 
that  at  a  distance  they  seemed  quite  black. 

In  the  following  case  the  savage  was  right. 
I  pointed  out  an  object,  dark,  far  off,  so  low 
down  as  to  be  just  visible  above  the  tall  grasses, 
passing  with  a  falling  and  rising  motion  like 
that  of  a  horseman  going  at  a  swinging  gallop. 
"There  goes  a  mounted  man,"  I  remarked. 
"No — a  traru,  "  returned  my  companion,  after 
one  swift  glance;  the  traru  being  a  large,  black, 
eagle-like  bird  of  the  plains.  But  the  object 
was  not  necessarily  more  distinct  to  him  than  to 
me;  he  could  not  see  wings  and  beak  at  that  dis- 
tance; but  the  traru  was  a  familiar  object,  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  see  at  all  distances — a 
figure  in  the  landscape  which  he  looked  for  and 
expected  to  find.  It  was  only  a  dark  blot  on 
the  horizon;  but  he  knew  the  animal's  habits  and 
appearance,  and  that  when  seen  far  off,  in  its 
low  down,  dilatory  rising  and  falling  flight,  it 
simulates  the  appearance  of  a  horseman  in  full 
gallop.  To  know  this  and  a  few  other  things  was 
his  vocation.  If  one  had  set  him  to  find  a  re- 
versed little  5  in  the  middle  of  a  closely-printed 
page  the  tears  would  have  run  down  his  bronzed 
cheeks,  and  he  would  have  abandoned  the  vain 
quest  with  aching  eyeballs.  Yet  the  proof- 
reader can  find  the  little  5  in  a  few  moments, 
without  straining  his  sight.  But  it  is  infinitely 
more  important  to  the  savage  than  to  us  to  see 
things  quickly  and  guess  their  nature  correctly. 
85 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

His  daily  food,  the  recovery  of  his  lost  animals 
and  his  personal  safety  depend  on  it;  and  it 
is  not,  ther'efore,  strange  that  every  blot  of  dark 
colour,  every  moving  and  motionless  object  on 
the  horizon  tells  its  story  better  to  him  than  to 
a  stranger;  especially  when  we  consider  how 
small  a  variety  of  objects  he  is  called  on  to  see 
and  judge  of  in  the  level  monotonous  region  he 
inhabits. 

This  quick  judging  of  dimly  seen  distant 
things,  the  eye  and  mind  achievement  of  the 
mounted  barbarian  on  the  unobstructed  plains, 
is  not  nearly  so  admirable  as  that  of  his  fellow- 
savage  in  sub-tropical  regions  overspread  with 
dense  vegetation,  with  animal  life  in  great 
abundance  and  variety  and  where  half  the 
attention  must  be  given  to  species  dangerous 
to  man,  often  very  small  in  size.  In  some 
hot  humid  forest  districts,  the  European 
who  should  attempt  to  hunt  or  explore  with 
bare  feet  and  legs  would  be  pricked  or  lacerated 
at  almost  every  step  of  his  progress,  and 
probably  get  bitten  by  a  serpent  before  the  day's 
end.  Yet  the  Indian  passes  his  life  there  and, 
naked  or  half-naked,  explores  the  unknown 
wilderness  of  thorns  and  has  only  his  arrows  to 
provide  food  for  himself  and  his  wife  and  children. 
He  does  not  get  pierced  with  thorns  and  bitten 
by  serpents,  because  his  eye  is  nicely  trained 
to  pick  them  out  in  time  to  save  himself.  He 
walks  rapidly,  but  he  knows  every  shade  of  green, 
every  smooth  and  crinkled  leaf  in  that  dense 
86 


Sight   in   Savages 

tangle,  full  of  snares  and  deceptions,  through 
which  he  is  obliged  to  walk;  and  much  as  leaf 
resembles  leaf,  he  sets  his  foot  where  he  can  safely 
set  it,  or,  quickly  choosing  between  two  evils, 
where  the  prickles  and  thorns  are  tenderest, 
or,  for  some  reason  known  to  him,  hurt  least. 
In  like  manner  he  distinguishes  the  coiled-up 
venomous  snake,  although  it  lies  so  motionless 
- — a  habit  common  to  the  most  deadly  kinds — 
and  in  its  dull  imitative  colouring  is  so  difficult 
to  be  distinguished  on  the  brown  earth,  and 
among  gray  sticks  and  sere  and  variegated 
leaves. 

A  friend  of  mine,  Fontana  of  Buenos  Ayres, 
who  has  a  life-long  acquaintance  with  the  Argen- 
tine Indians,  expresses  the  opinion  that  at  the 
age  of  twelve  years  the  savage  of  the  Pampas 
has  completed  his  education  and  is  thereafter 
able  to  take  care  oi  himself;  but  that  the  savage 
of  the  Gran  Chaco — the  sub-tropical  Argentine 
territory  bordering  on  Paraguay  and  Bolivia, — 
if  left  to  shift  for  himself  at  that  age  would 
speedily  perish,  since  he  is  then  only  in  the  middle 
of  his  long,  difficult  and  painful  apprenticeship. 
It  was  curious  and  pitiful,  he  says,  to  see  the 
little  Indian  children  in  the  Chaco,  when  their 
skins  were  yet  tender,  stealing  away  from  their 
mother  and  trying  to  follow  the  larger  ones  play- 
ing at  a  distance.  At  every  step  they  would  fall 
and  get  pricked  with  thorns  or  cut  with  sharp- 
edged  rushes  and  tangled  in  the  creepers,  and 
hurt  and  cr^'ing  they  would  stiaiggle  on  and 
87 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

in  this  painful  manner  at  last  learn  where  to 
set  their  feet. 

The  snake  on  the  jrround,  coloured  like  the 
ground  and  shaped  hke  the  dead  curved  sticks 
or  vines  seen  everywhere  on  the  ground,  and 
motionless  like  the  vine,  does  not  more  closely 
assimilate  to  its  surroundings  than  birds  in  trees 
often  do — the  birds  which  the  Indian  must  also 
see.  A  stranger  in  these  regions,  even  the  natur- 
alist with  a  sight  quickened  by  enthusiasm,  finds 
it  hard  to  detect  a  parrot  in  a  lofty  tree,  even 
when  he  knows  that  parrots  are  there;  for  their 
greenness  in  the  green  foliage  and  the  correlated 
habit  they  possess  of  remaining  silent  and  motion- 
less in  the  presence  of  an  intruder,  make  them 
invisible  to  him,  and  he  is  astonished  that  the 
Indian  should  be  able  to  detect  them.  The 
Indian  knows  how  to  look  for  them;  it  is  his 
trade,  which  is  long  to  learn;  but  he  is  obliged 
to  learn  it,  for  his  success  in  life,  and  even  life 
itself,  depends  on  it,  since  in  the  savage  state 
Nature  kills  those  who  fail  in  her  competitive 
examinations. 

The  reader  has  doubtless  often  seen  those 
little  picture-puzzles,  variously  labelled  "  Where's 
the  Cat?"  or  "Mad  Bull,"  or  "Burglar,"  or 
"Policeman,"  or  "Snake  in  the  Grass,"  etc., 
in  which  the  thing  named  and  to  be  discovered 
is  formed  by  branches  and  foliage  and  by  running 
water  and  drapery  and  lights  and  shadows  in 
the  sketch.  At  first  one  finds  it  extremely  dif- 
ficult  to   detect   this   picture   within   a   picture; 


Sight  in   Savages 

and  at  last,  with  the  suddenness  with  which  one 
invariably  detects  a  dull-coloured  snake,  seen 
previously  but  not  distinguished — the  object 
sought  for  appears,  and  is  thereafter  so  plain  to 
the  eye  that  one  cannot  look  at  the  sketch,  even 
held  at  a  distance,  without  seeing  the  cat  or 
policeman,  or  whatever  it  happens  to  be.  And 
after  patiently  studying  some  scores  or  himdreds 
of  these  puzzles  one  gets  to  know  just  how  to 
find  the  thing  concealed,  and  finds  it  quickly — 
almost  at  a  glance  at  last.  Now,  the  ingenious 
person  that  first  invented  this  pretty  puzzle 
probably  had  no  thought  of  Nature,  with  her 
curious  imitative  and  protective  resemblances, 
in  his  mind;  yet  he  might  very  well  have  taken 
the  hint  from  Nature,  for  this  is  what  she  does. 
The  animal  that  must  be  seen  to  be  avoided, 
and  the  animal  that  must  be  seen  to  be  taken, 
are  there  in  her  picture,  sketched  in  with  such 
cunning  art  that  to  the  uninstructed  eye  they 
form  only  portions  of  branch  and  foliage  and 
shadow  and  sunlight  "above,  and  duU-hued  or 
variegated  earth  and  stones  and  dead  and 
withering  herbage  underneath. 

It  is  possible  that  slight  difterences  may  exist 
in  the  seeing  powers  of  dift'erent  nations,  due  to 
the  effect  of  physical  conditions:  thus,  the  inhab- 
itants of  mountainous  districts  and  of  dry  ele- 
vated tablelands  may  have  a  better  sight  than 
dwellers  in  low,  humid  and  level  regions,  although 
just  the  reverse  may  be  the  case.  Among 
European  nations  the  Germans  are  generally 
89 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

supposed  to  have  weak  eyes,  owing,  some  imagine, 
to  their  excessive  indulgence  in  tobacco,  while 
others  attribute  the  supposed  decay  to  the  form 
of  type  used  in  their  books,  which  requires  closer 
looking  at  than  ours  in  reading.  That  they 
will  deteriorate  still  further  in  this  direction, 
and  from  bv-^ing  a  spectacled  people  become  a 
blind  one,  to  the  joy  of  their  enemies,  is  not  likely 
to  happen ,  and  probably  the  decadence  has  been 
a  great  deal  exaggerated.  Animals  living  in 
darkness  become  near-sighted,  and  then  nearer- 
sighted  still  and  so  on  progressively  until  the 
vanishing  point  is  reached.  In  a  community  or 
nation  a  similar  decline  might  begin  from  much 
reading  of  German  books,  or  perpetual  smoking 
of  pipes  with  big  china  bowls,  or  from  some  other 
unknown  cause;  but  the  decay  could  not  pro- 
gress far,  because  there  is  nothing  in  man  to  take 
the  place  of  sight,  as  there  is  in  the  blind  cave  rats 
and  fishes  and  insects.  And  if  we  could  survey 
mankind  from  China  to  Peru  with  all  the  scien- 
tific appliances  which  are  brought  to  bear  on 
the  Board-school  children  in  London  and  on  the 
nation  generally,  the  differences  in  the  powers  of 
vision  in  the  various  races,  nations  and  tribes 
would  probably  appear  very  insi.gnificant.  The 
mistake  which  eye  specialists  and  writers  on  the 
eye  make  is  that  they  think  too  much  about  the 
eye.  When  they  affirm  that  the  conditions  of 
our  civilization  are  highly  injurious  to  the  sight, 
do  they  mean  all  the  million  conditions  or  sets  of 
conditions  embraced  by  our  system,  with  the 
90 


Sight   in   Savages 

infinite  variety  of  occupations  and  modes  of 
living  which  men  have,  from  the  lighthouse- 
keeper  to  the  worker  underground,  whose  day 
is  the  dim  glimmer  of  a  miner's  lamp?  "An 
organ  exercised  beyond  its  wont  will  grow  and 
thus  meet  increase  of  demand  by  increase  of 
supply,"  Herbert  Spencer  says;  but,  he  adds, 
there  is  a  limit  soon  reached,  beyond  which  it  is 
impossible  to  go.  This  increase  of  demand  with 
us  is  ever\-where — now  on  this  organ  and  now 
on  that,  according  to  our  work  and  way  of  life, 
and  the  eye  is  in  no  worse  case  than  the  other 
organs.  There  are  among  us  many  cases  of 
heart  complaint;  civilization,  in  such  cases,  has 
put  too  great  a  strain  on  that  organ,  and  it  has 
reached  the  limit  beyond  which  it  cannot  go. 
And  so  with  the  eye.  The  total  number  of  the 
defective  among  us  is  no  doubt  ver}-  large,  for  we 
know  that  our  system  of  life  retards — it  cannot 
effectually  prevent — the  healthy  action  of  nat- 
ural selection.  Nature  pulls  one  way  and  we 
pull  the  other,  compassionately  trying  to  save  the 
unfit  from  the  consequences  of  their  unfitness. 
The  humane  instinct  compels  us;  but  the  cruel 
instinct  of  the  savage,  who  hates  the  sick  and 
the  unfit  as  the  inferior  animals  do,  is  less  painful 
to  contemplate  than  that  mistaken  or  perv^erted 
compassion  which  seeks  to  perpetuate  unfitness, 
and  in  the  interest  of  suffering  individuals  inflicts 
a  lasting  injur\"  on  the  race. 

Pelleschi,  in  his  admirable  book  on  the  Chaco 
Indians,  says  that  malformations  arc  never  seen 
91 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

in   these   sava<^cs.   that   physically   they   are   all 
perfect  men;  and  he  remarks  that  in  their  exceed- 
ingly  hard   struggle   for  existence   in   a   thorny 
wilderness,  beset  with  perils,  any  bodily  defect 
or  ailment  would  be  fatal.     x\nd  as  the  eye  in 
their  life  is  the  most  important  organ,  it  must 
be  an  eye  without  flaw.     In  this  circumstance 
only  do  savages  differ  from  us — namely,  in  the 
absence  or  rarity  of  defective  eyes  among  them; 
and  when  those  who,  like  Mr.  Brudenell  Carter, 
believe  in  the  decadence  of  the  e}7e  in  civili.-red 
man  quote  Humboldt's  words  about  the  mirac- 
ulous  sight    of   South   American    savages,    they 
quote   an  error.      It  is  not  strange  that   Hum- 
boldt should  have  fallen  into  it,   for,   after  all, 
he  had  only  the  means  which  we  all  possess  of 
finding  out  things — a  limited  sight  and  a  fallible 
mind.      Like    the    savage,    he    had    trained    his 
faculties  to  observe  and  infer,  and  his  inferences 
like  those  of  the  savages,  were  sometimes  wrong. 
The  savage  sight  is  no  better  than  ours  for  the 
simple    reason    that    a   better   is    not    required. 
Nature  has  given  to  him,  as  to  all  her  creatures, 
only  what  was  necessary  and  nothing  for  osten- 
tation.    Standing   on    the    ground,    his   horizon 
is  a  limited    one;  and  the  animals  he  preys  on, 
if  often  sharper-eyed  and  swifter  than  he,   are 
without  intelligence,  and  thus  things  are  made 
equal.     He  can  see  the  rhea  as  far  as  the  rhea  can 
see  him;  and  if  he  possessed  the  eagle's  far-seeing 
faculty  it  would  be  of  no   advantage  to  him. 
The  high-soaring  eagle  requires  to  see  very  far, 
92 


Sight   in   Savages 

but  the  low-flying  owl  is  near-sighted.  And  so 
on  through  the  whole  animal  world:  each  kind 
has  sight  sufficient  to  find  its  food  and  escape 
from  its  enemies,  and  nothing  beyond.  Animals 
that  live  close  to  the  surface  have  a  ver}'  limited 
sight.  Moreover,  other  faculties  may  usurp  the 
eye's  place,  or  develop  so  greatly  as  to  make  the 
eye  of  only  secondary  importance  as  an  organ 
of  intelligence.  The  snake  offers  a  curious  case. 
Xo  other  sense  seems  to  have  developed  in  it, 
yet  I  take  the  snake  to  be  one  of  the  nearest- 
sighted  creatures  in  existence.  From  long  ob- 
servation of  them  I  am  convinced  that  small 
snakes  of  ver\^  sluggish  habits  do  not  sec  dis- 
tinctly farther  than  from  one  to  three  yards. 
But  the  snake  is  the  champion  faster  in  the 
animal  world  and  can  afford  to  lie  quiescent  until 
the  wind  of  chance  blows  something  eatable  in 
its  way;  hence  it  does  not  require  to  see  an  ob- 
ject distinctly  until  almost  within  striking  dis- 
tance. Another  remarkable  case  is  that  of  the 
armadillo.  Of  two  species  I  can  confidently 
say  that,  if  they  are  not  blind,  they  are  next  door 
to  blindness;  yet  they  are  diurnal  animals  that 
go  abroad  in  the  full  glare  of  noon  and  wander 
far  m  search  of  food.  But  their  sense  of  smell 
is  marvellously  acute,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
mole,  it  has  made  sight  superflous.  To  come 
back  to  man:  if,  in  a  state  of  nature,  he  is  able 
to  guess  the  character  of  objects  nine  times  in 
ten,  or  nineteen  in  twenty,  seen  as  far  oft'  as  he 
requires  to  see  anything,  his  intellectual  faculties 
93 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

make  a  better  sight  unnecessary.  If  the  arma- 
dillo's scent  had  not  been  so  keen  and  man  had 
not  been  gifted  with  nimble  brains,  the  sight 
in  both  cases  would  have  been  vastly  stronger; 
but  the  sharpening  of  its  sense  of  smell  has 
dimmed  the  armadillo's  eyes  and  made  him 
blinder  than  a  snake;  while  man  (from  no  fault 
of  his  own)  is  unable  to  see  farther  than  the  wolf 
and  the  ostrich  and  the  wild  ass. 


94 


MECHANISM  IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS 
Dr.    Oliver  Wexdell   Holmes 

[Dr.  Holmes  was  at  once  a  distinguished  physician,  poet, 
novelist,  and  wit.  His  "Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table" 
is  one  of  the  most  charming  books  ever  written,  his  poetry 
and  essays  are  of  even  greater  popularity.  Dr.  Holmes's 
"Works  are  published  in  fourteen  volumes  by  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston  and  New  York,  copyright  in  various 
editions.  The  essay  from  which  extracts  follow  is  in  the 
eighth  volume.] 

Do  WE  ever  think  without  knowing  that  we- 
are  thinking?  The  question  may  be  disguised 
so  as  to  look  a  little  less  paradoxical.  Are  there 
any  mental  processes  of  which  we  are  uncon- 
scious at  the  time,  but  which  we  recognize  as 
having  taken  place  by  finding  certain  results  in 
our  minds  ? 

That  there  are  such  unconscious  mental  ac- 
tions is  laid  down  in  the  strongest  terms  by  Leib- 
nitz, whose  doctrine  reverses  the  axiom  of  Des- 
cartes into  /  am,  therefore  I  think.  The  existence 
of  unconscious  thought  is  maintained  by  him 
in  terms  we  might  fairly  call  audacious,  and 
illustrated  by  some  of  the  most  striking  facts 
bearing  upon  it.  The  "insensible  perceptions," 
he  says,  are  as  important  in  pneumatolog\'- 
[spiritual  philosophy]  as  corpuscles  are  in  physics. 
— It  does  not  follow,  he  says  again,  that,  because 
95 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

we  do  not  perceive  thought,  it  does  not  exist. — 
Something  goes  on  in  the  mind  which  answers 
to  the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  all  the  internal 
movements  of  the  viscera. — In  one  word,  it  is 
a  great  source  of  error  to  believe  that  there  is  no 
perception  in  the  mind  but  those  of  which  it  is 
conscious. 

This  is  surely  a  sufliciently  explicit  and  per- 
emptory statement  of  the  doctrine,  which,  under 
the  names  of  "latent  consciousness,"  ."obscure 
perceptions,"  "the  hidden  soul,"  "unconscious 
cerebration,"  "reflex  action  of  the  brain,"  has 
been  of  late  years  emerging  into  general  recog- 
nition in  treatises  of  psychology  and  physiolog3^ 

His  allusion  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood  and 
the  movements  of  the  viscera,  as  illustrating 
his  paradox  of  thinking  without  knowing  it, 
shows  that  he  saw  the  whole  analogy  of  the 
mysterious  intellectual  movement  with  that 
series  of  reflex  actions  so  fully  described  half  a 
century  later  by  Hartley,  whose  observations, 
obscured  by  wrong  interpretation  of  the  cerebral 
structure  and  an  insufficient  theory  of  vibrations 
which  he  borrowed  from  Newton,  are  yet  a 
remarkable  anticipation  of  many  of  the  ideas  of 
modem  physiolog}^  for  which  credit  has  been 
given  so  liberally  to  Unzer  and  Prochaska.  Un- 
conscious activity  is  the  rule  with  the  actions 
most  iinportant  to  life. The  lout  who  lies  stretched 
on  the  tavern  bench,  with  just  mental  activity 
enough  to  keep  his  pipe  from  going  out  is  the 
unconscious  tenant  of  a  laboratory  where  such 
96 


Mechanism   in   Thought   and   Morals 

combinations  are  being  constantly  made  as 
never  Wohler  or  Berthelot  could  put  together; 
where  such  fabrics  are  woven,  such  colours  dyed, 
such  problems  of  mechanism  solved,  such  a 
commerce  carried  on  with  the  elements  and 
forces  of  the  outer  universe,  that  the  industries 
of  all  the  factories  and  trading  establishments  in 
the  world  are  mere  indolence  and  awk- 
wardness and  unproductiveness  compared  to 
the  miraculous  activities  of  which  his  lazy  bulk 
is  the  unheeding  centre.  All  these  unconscious 
or  reflex  actions  take  place  by  a  mechanism 
never  more  simply  stated  than  in  the  words  of 
Hartley,  as  ''vibrations  which  ascend  up  the 
sensor}'  nerves  first,  and  then  are  detached  down 
the  motory  nerves,  which  communicate  with 
these  by  some  common  trunk,  plexus,  [network] 
or  ganglion  [knot]."  The  doctrine  of  Leibnitz,  that 
the  brain  may  sometimes  act  without  our  taking 
cognizance  of  it,  as  the  heart  commonly  does, 
as  many  internal  organs  always  do,  seems  almost 
to  belong  to  our  time.  The  readers  of  Hamilton 
and  Mill,  of  Abercrombie,  Laycock  and  Maudsley, 
of  Sir  John  Herschel,  of  Carpenter,  of  Lecky,  of 
Dallas,  will  find  many  variations  on  the  text  of 
Leibnitz,  some  new  illustrations,  a  new  classitica- 
tion  and  nomenclature  of  the  facts;  but  the  root 
of  the  matter  is  all  to  be  found  in  his  writings. 

I  will  give  some  instances  of  work  done  in  the 

underground    workshop    of    thought — some    of 

them  familiar  to  the  readers  of  the  authors  just 

mentioned.     We   wish  to   remember   something 

97 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

in  the  course  of  conversation.  No  effort  of  the 
will  can  reach  it;  but  we  say,  "Wait  a  minute, 
and  it  will  come  to  me,"  and  go  on  talking. 
Presently,  perhaps  some  minutes  later,  the  idea 
we  are  in  search  of  comes  all  at  once  into  the 
mind,  delivered  like  a  prepaid  bundle,  laid  at 
the  door  of  consciousness  like  a  foundling  in  a 
basket.  How  it  came  there  we  know  not.  The 
mind  must  have  been  at  work  groping  and  feeling 
for  it  in  the  dark:  it  cannot  have  come  of  itself. 
Yet,  all  the  while,  our  consciousness,  so  far  as 
we  are  conscious  of  our  consciousness,  was  busy 
with  other  thoughts. 

In  old  persons,  there  is  sometimes  a  long  inter- 
val of  obscure  mental  action  before  the  answer 
to  a  question  is  evolved.  I  remember  making 
an  inquiry  of  an  ancient  man,  whom  I  met  on  the 
road  in  a  waggon  with  his  daughter,  about  a  cer- 
tain old  burial-ground  which  I  was  visiting. 
He  seemed  to  listen  attentively;  but  I  got  no 
answer.  "Wait  half  a  minute  or  so,  "  the  daugh- 
ter said,  "and  he  will  tell  you."  And  sure 
enough,  after  a  little  time  he  answered  me  and 
to  the  point.  The  delay  here,  probably,  corre- 
sponded to  what  machinists  call  "lost  time,"  or 
"back  lash"  in  turning  an  old  screw,  the  thread 
of  which  is  worn.  But,  within  a  fortnight,  I 
examined  a  young  man  for  his  degree  in  whom 
I  noticed  a  certain  regular  interv^al,  and  a  pretty 
long  one,  between  ever\'  question  and  its  answer. 
Yet  the  answer  was,  in  almost  every  instance, 
correct,  when  at  last  it  did  come.  It  was  an 
98 


Mechanism  in   Thought   and   florals 

idiosyncrasy,  I  found,  which  his  previous  instruc- 
tors had  noticed.  I  do  not  think  the  mind 
knows  what  it  is  doing  in  the  interval,  in  such 
cases.  This  latent  period,  during  which  the 
brain  is  obscurely  at  work,  may,  perhaps,  belong 
to  mathematicians  more  than  others.  Swift 
said  of  Sir  Isaac  Xewton  that,  if  one  were  to  ask 
him  a  question,  "he  would  revolve  it  in  a  circle 
in  his  brain,  round  and  round  and  round"  (the 
narrator  here  describing  a  circle  on  his  own  fore- 
head),    "before  he  could  produce   an   answer." 

I  have  often  spoken  of  the  same  trait  in  a 
distinguished  friend  of  my  own,  remarkable  for 
his  mathematical  genius,  and  compared  his 
sometimes  long-deferred  answer  to  a  question 
with  half  a  dozen  others  stratified  over  it,  to 
the  thawing  out  of  the  frozen  words  as  told  of  by 
Baron  Munchausen  and  Rabelais,  and  nobody 
knows  how  many  others  before  them. 

I  was  told,  within  a  week,  of  a  business  man  in 
Boston,  who.  having  an  important  question  under 
consideration,  had  given  it  up  for  the  time  as  too 
much  for  him.  But  he  w^as  conscious  of  an 
action  going  on  in  his  brain  which  was  so  unusual 
and  painful  as  to  excite  his  apprehensions  that 
he  was  threatened  with  palsy,  or  something  of 
that  sort.  After  some  hours  of  this  uneasiness, 
his  perplexity  was  all  at  once  cleared  up  by  the 
natural  solution  of  his  doubt  coming  to  him — 
worked  out,  as  he  believed,  in  that  obscure  and 
troubled  inter\-al. 

The  cases  are  numerous  where  questions  have 
99 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

been  answered,  or  problems  solved,  in  dreams, 
or  during  unconscious  sleep.  Two  of  our  most 
distinguished  professors  in  this  institution  have 
had  such  an  experience,  as  they  tell  me;  and  one 
of  them  has  often  assured  me  that  he  never 
dreams.  Somnambulism  and  double-conscious- 
ness offer  another  series  of  illustrations.  Many 
of  my  audience  remember  a  murder  case,  where 
the  accused  was  successfully  defended,  on  the 
ground  of  somnambulism,  by  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  of  American  lawyers.  In  the  year 
1686  a  brother  of  Lord  Culpepper  was  indicted 
at  the  Old  Bailey  for  shooting  one  of  the  guards 
and  acquitted  on  the  same  ground  of  somnam- 
bulism; that  is  an  unconscious  and,  therefore, 
irresponsible  state  of  activity. 

A  more  familiar  instance  of  unconscious  action 
is  to  be  found  in  what  we  call  "absent"  persons 
— those  who,  while  wide  awake,  act  with  an 
apparent  purpose,  but  without  really  knowing 
what  they  are  doing;  as  in  La  Bruydre's  charac- 
ter, who  threw  his  glass  of  wine  into  the  back- 
gammon board  and  swallowed  the  dice. 

There  are  a  vast  number  of  movements  which 
we  perform  with  perfect  regularity  while  we  are 
thinking  of  something  quite  different — "auto- 
matic actions  of  the  secondary  kind,  "  as  Hartley 
calls  them,  and  of  which  he  gives  various  ex- 
amples. The  old  woman  knits ;  the  young  woman 
stitches,  or  perhaps  plays  her  piano  and  yet  talks 
away  as  if  nothing  but  her  tongue  were  busy. 
Two  lovers  stroll  along  side  by  side,  just  born 
100 


Mechanism   in   Thouj^^ht   and   ]\  [orals 


t>' 


into  the  rosy  morning  of  their  new  Hfe,  prattHng 
the  sweet  folUes  worth  all  the  wisdom  that  years 
will  ever  bring  them.  How  much  do  they  think 
about  that  wonderful  problem  of  balanced  pro- 
gression which  they  solve  anew  at  everv^  step  ? 

We  are  constantly  finding  results  of  unper- 
ceived  mental  processes  in  our  consciousness. 
Here  is  a  striking  instance,  which  I  borrow  from 
a  recent  number  of  an  English  journal.  It 
relates  to  what  is  considered  the  most  interesting 
period  of  incubation  in  Sir  William  Rowan  Ham- 
ilton's discovery  of  quaternions.  The  time  was 
the  15th  of  October,  1843.  On  that  day,  he 
says  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  he  was  walking  from 
his  observatory  to  Dublin  with  Lady  Hamilton, 
when,  on  reaching  Brougham  Bridge,  he  "felt 
the  galvanic  circle  of  thought  close;  and  the 
sparks  that  fell  from  it  were  the  fundamental 
relations  between  i,  j,  k,"  just  as  he  used  them 
ever  afterwards. 

Still  another  instance  of  the  spontaneous 
evolution  of  thought  we  may  find  in  the  exper- 
ience of  a  great  poet.  When  Goethe  shut  his  eyes 
and  pictured  a  flower  to  himself,  he  says  that 
it  developed  itself  before  him  in  leaves  and  blos- 
soms. The  result  of  the  mental  process  appeared 
as- pictured  thought;  but  the  process  itself  was 
automatic  and  imperceptible. 

There    are    thoughts    that    never  emerge  into 

consciousness,   which   yet   make   their  influence 

felt  among  the  perceptible  mental  currents,  just 

as  the  unseen  planets  sway  the  movements  of 

101 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

those  which  are  watched  and  mapped  by  the 
astronomer.  Old  prejudices  that  are  ashamed 
to  confess  themselves  nudge  our  talking  thought 
to  utter  their  magisterial  veto.  In  hours  of 
languor,  as  Mr.  Lecky  has  remarked  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  Rationalism,"  the  beliefs  and  fancies  of 
obsolete  conditions  are  apt  to  take  advantage  of 
us.  We  know  very  little  of  the  contents  of  our 
minds  until  some  sudden  jar  brings  them  to 
light,  as  an  earthquake  that  shakes  down  a 
miser's  house  brings  out  the  old  stockings  full  of 
gold  and  all  the  hoards  that  have  been  hidden 
away  in  holes  and  crannies. 

We  not  rarely  find  our  personality  doubled  in 
our  dreams  and  do  battle  with  ourselves,  un- 
conscious that  we  are  our  own  antagonists.  Dr. 
Johnson  dreamed  that  he  had  a  contest  of  wit 
with  an  opponent,  and  got  the  worst  of  it:  of 
course  he  furnished  the  wit  for  both.  Tartini 
heard  the  Devil  play  a  wonderful  sonata  and  set 
it  down  on  waking.  Who  was  the  Devil  but 
Tartini  himself?  I  remember,  in  my  youth, 
reading  verses  in  a  dream,  written,  as  I  thovight, 
by  a  rival  fledgling  of  the  Muse.  They  were  so 
far  beyond  my  powers  that  I  despaired  of  equal- 
ling them;  yet  I  must  have  made  them  uncon- 
sciously as  I  read  them.  Could  I  only  have 
remembered  them  waking ! 

But  I  must  here  add  another  personal  exper- 
ience, of  which  I  will  say  beforehand — somewhat 
as  honest  Isaak  Walton  said  of  his  pike,"  This  dish 
of  meat  is  too  good  for  any  but  anglers  or  honest 
102 


Mechanism   in   Thought   and   ^Morals 

men" — this  stor>^  is  good  only  for  philosophers 
and  very  small  children.  I  will  merely  hint  to 
the  former  class  of  thinkers,  that  its  moral  bears 
on  two  points:  first,  the  value  of  our  self-estimate, 
sleeping — possibly,  also,  waking;  secondly,  the 
significance  of  general  formulae  when  looked  at  in 
certain  exalted  mental  conditions. 

I  once  inhaled  a  pretty  full  dose  of  ether,  with 
the  determination  to  put  on  record,  at  the  earliest 
moment  of  regaining  consciousness,  the  thought 
I  should  find  uppermost  in  my  mind.  The 
mighty  music  of  the  triumphal  march  into 
nothingness  reverberated  through  my  brain, 
and  filled  me  with  a  sense  of  infinite  possibilities, 
which  made  me  an  archangel  for  the  moment. 
The  veil  of  eternity  was  lifted.  The  one  great 
truth  which  underlies  all  human  experience  and 
is  the  key  to  all  the  mysteries  that  philosophy 
has  sought  in  vain  to  solve,  flashed  upon  me  in  a 
sudden  revelation.  Henceforth  all  was  clear: 
a  few  words  had  lifted  my  intelligence  to  the 
level  of  the  knowledge  of  the  cherubim.  As  my 
natural  condition  returned,  I  remembered  my 
resolution;  and,  staggering  to  my  desk,  I  wrote, 
in  ill-shaped,  straggling  characters,  the  all  em- 
bracing truth  still  glimmering  in  my  conscious- 
ness. The  words  were  these  (children  may  smile ; 
the  wise  will  ponder):  ".4  strong  s%nell  of  tur- 
pentine prevails   throughout. " 

My  digression  has  served  at  least  to  illustrate 
the  radical  change  which  a  slight  material  cause 
may  produce  in  our  thoughts,  and  the  way  we 
103 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

think  about  them.  If  the  state  just  described 
were  prolonged,  it  would  be  called  insanity.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  there  are  many  ill-organized 
perhaps  over-organized  human  brains,  to  which 
the  common  air  is  what  the  vapour  of  ether  was 
to  mine:  it  is  madness  to  them  to  drink  in  this 
terrible  burning  oxygen  at  every  breath;  and 
the  atmosphere  that  enfolds  them  is  like  the 
flaming  shirt  of  Nessus. 

The  more  we  examine  the  mechanism  of 
thought,  the  more  we  shall  see  that  the  auto- 
matic, unconscious  action  of  the  mind  enters 
largely  into  all  its  processes.  Our  definite  ideas 
are  stepping-stones;  how  we  get  from  one  to  the 
other,  w^e  do  not  know:  something  carries  us;  we 
do  not  take  the  step.  A  creating  and  informing 
spirit  which  is  with  us,  and  not  of  us.  is  recognized 
everywhere  in  real  and  storied  life.  It  is  the 
Zeus  that  kindled  the  rage  of  Achilles;  it  is  the 
muse  of  Homer;  it  is  the  Daimon  of  Socrates;  it 
is  the  inspiration  of  the  seer;  it  is  the  mocking 
devil  that  whispers  to  Margaret  as  she  kneels  at 
the  altar;  and  the  hobgoblin  that  cried,  "Sell 
him,  sell  him!"  in  the  ear  of  John  Bunyan :  it 
shaped  the  forms  that  filled  the  soul  of  Michael 
Angelo  when  he  saw  the  figure  of  the  great  Law- 
giver in  the  yet  unhewn  marble,  and  the  dome 
of  the  world's  yet  unbuilt  basilica  against  the 
black  horizon;  it  comes  to  the  least  of  us,  as  a 
voice  that  will  be  heard;  it  tells  us  what  we  must 
believe;  it  frames  our  sentences;  it  lends  a  sudden 
gleam  of  sense  or  eloquence  to  the  dullest  of  us 
104 


Mechanism   in   Thought   and   Morals 

all,  so  that,  like  Katterfelto  with  his  hair  on  end, 
we  wonder  at  ourselves,  or  rather  not  at  our- 
selves, but  at  this  divine  visitor,  who  chooses  our 
brain  as  his  dwelling-place,  and  invests  our  naked 
thought  with  the  purple  of  the  kings  of  speech  or 
song. 

After  all,  the  mystery  of  unconscious  mental 
action  is  exemplified,  as  I  have  said,  in  ever}'  act 
of  mental  association.  What  happens  when 
one  idea  brings  up  another?  Some  internal 
movement,  of  which  we  are  wholly  unconscious 
and  which  we  only  know  by  its  effect.  What  is 
this  action,  which  in  Dame  Quickly  agglutinates 
contiguous  circumstances  b}'  their  surfaces;  in 
men  of  wit  and  fancy,  connects  remote  ideas  by 
partial  resemblances;  in  men  of  imagination,  by 
the  vital  identity  which  underlies  phenomenal 
diversity;  in  the  man  of  science,  groups  the  ob- 
jects of  thought  in  sequences  of  maximum  resem- 
blance ?  Not  one  of  them  can  answer.  There 
is  a  Delphi  and  a  Pythoness  in  ever}^  human 
breast.  [At  Delphi  in  ancient  Greece  was  the 
oracle  of  Apollo:  the  Pythoness  was  his  priestess.] 

The  poet  sits  down  to  his  desk  with  an  odd 
conceit  in  his  brain;  and  presently  his  eyes  fill 
with  tears,  his  thought  slides  into  the  minor  key, 
and  his  heart  is  full  of  sad  and  plaintive  melodies. 
Or  he  goes  to  his  work  saying  "To-night  I  would 
have  tears."  and  before  he  rises  from  his  table 
he  has  written  a  burlesque,  such  as  he  might 
think  fit  to  send  to  one  of  the  comic  papers,  if 
these  were  not  so  commonly  cemeteries  of  hilarity 
105 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

interspersed  with  cenotaphs  of  wit  and  humour. 
These  strange  hysterics  of  the  intelHgence,  which 
make  us  pass  from  weeping  to  laughter,  and 
from  laughter  back  again  to  weeping,  must  be 
familiar  to  every  impressible  nature;  and  all  is  as 
automatic,  involuntary,  as  entirely  self-evolved 
by  a  hidden  organic  process,  as  are  the  changing 
moods  of  the  laughing  and  erv'ing  woman.  The 
poet  always  recognizes  a  dictation  from  without, 
and  we  hardly  think  it  a  figure  of  speech  when  we 
talk  of  his  inspiration. 

The  mental  attitude  of  the  poet  while  writing, 
if  I  may  venture  to  define  it,  is  that  of  the  "nun, 
breathless  with  adoration."  Mental  stillness 
is  the  first  condition  of  the  listening  state;  and 
I  think  my  friends  the  poets  will  recognize  that 
the  sense  of  effort,  which  is  often  felt,  accom- 
panies the  mental  spasm  by  which  the  mind  is 
maintained  in  a  state  at  once  passive  to  the  influx 
from  without,  and  active  in  seizing  only  that 
which  will  serve  its  purpose.*  It  is  not  strange 
that  remembered  ideas  should  often  take  advan- 
tage of  the  crowd  of  thoughts  and  smuggle  them- 
selves in  as  original.  Honest  thinkers  are  always 
stealing   unconsciously    from    each    other.      Our 

*  Bums  tell  us  how  he  composed  verses  for  a  given  tune. 

"My  way  is,  I  consider  the  poetic  sentiment  correspondent 
to  my  idea  of  the  musical  expression;  then  choose  my  theme; 
begin  one  stanza.  When  that  is  composed,  which  is  gen- 
erally the  most  difficult  part  of  the  business,  I  walk  out, 
sit  down  now  and  then,  look  out  for  objects  in  Nature  that 
are  in  unison  or  harmony  with  the  cogitations  of  my  fancy, 

106 


^Mechanism   in   Thought   and   ]\Iorals 

minds  are  full  of  waifs  and  estrays  which  we 
think  our  own.  Innocent  plagiarism  turns  up 
everywhere.  Our  best  musical  critic  tells  me 
that  a  few  notes  of  the  air  of  "Shoo  Fly"  are 
borrowed  from  a  movement  in  one  of  the  magni- 
ficent harmonies  of  Beethoven. 

And  so  the  orator — I  do  not  mean  the  poor 
slave  of  a  manuscript,  who  takes  his  thought 
chilled  and  stiffened  from  its  mould,  but  the 
impassioned  speaker  who  pours  it  forth  as  it 
flows  coruscating  from  the  furnace — the  orator 
only  becomes  our  master  at  the  moment  when 
he  himself  is  surprised,  captured,  taken  posses- 
sion of,  by  a  sudden  rush  of  fresh  inspiration. 
How  well  w^e  know  the  flash  of  the  eye,  the  thrill 
of  the  voice,  which  are  the  signature  and  symbol 
of  nascent  thought — thought  just  emerging  into 
consciousness,  in  which  condition,  as  is  the  case 
with  the  chemist's  elements,  it  has  a  combining 
force  at  other  times  wholly  unknown  ! 

But  we  are  all  more  or  less  improvisators. 
We  all  have  a  double,  who  is  wiser  and  better 
than  we  are,  and  who  puts  thoughts  into  our 
heads  and  w^ords  into  our  mouths.  Do  we 
not  all  commune  with  our  own  hearts  upon  our 
beds  ?     Do  w^e  not  all  divide  ourselves  and  go  to 

and  workings  of  my  bosom;  humming  every  now  and  then 
the  air  with  the  verses  I  have  framed.  When  I  feel  my 
Muse  beginning  to  jade  I  retire  to  the  solitary  fireside  of 
my  study,  and  there  commit  my  effusions  to  paper;  swinging 
at  intervals  on  the  hind-legs  of  my  elbow-chair,  by  way  of 
calling  forth  my  own  critical  strictures,  as  my  pen  goes  on. " 
—"Letters  to  G.  Thomsor,"  No.  XXXVII. 
107 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

buffets  on  questions  of  right  or  wrong,  of  wisdom 
or  folly  ?  Who  or  what  is  it  that  resolves  the 
stately  parliament  of  the  day,  with  all  its  forms 
and  conventionalities  and  pretences,  and  the 
great  Me  presiding,  into  the  committee  of  the 
whole,  with  Conscience  in  the  chair,  that  holds 
its  solemn  session  through  the  watches  of  the 
night  ? 

Persons  who  talk  most  do  not  always  think 
most.  I  question  whether  persons  who  think 
most — that  is,  have  most  conscious  thought 
pass  through  their  ininds — necessarily  do  most 
mental  work.  The  tree  that  you  are  sticking 
in  "will  be  growing  when  you  are  sleeping." 
So  with  every  new  idea  that  is  planted  in  a  real 
thinker's  mind:  it  will  be  growing  when  he  is 
least  conscious  of  it.  An  idea  in  the  brain  is  not 
a  legend  carved  on  a  marble  slab:  it  is  an  im- 
pression made  on  a  living  tissue,  which  is  the 
seat  of  active  nutritive  processes.  Shall  the 
initials  I  carved  in  bark  increase  from  year  to 
year  with  the  tree?  and  shall  not  my  recorded 
thought  develop  into  new  forms  and  relations 
with  my  growing  brain  ?  Mr.  Webster  told  one 
of  our  greatest  scholars  that  he  had  to  change 
the  size  of  his  hat  every  few  years.  His  head 
grew  larger  as  his  intellect  expanded.  Illustra- 
tions of  this  same  fact  were  shown  me  many 
years  ago  by  Mr.  Deville,  the  famous  phrenologist, 
in  London.  But  organic  mental  changes  may 
take  place  in  shorter  spaces  of  time.  A  single 
night  of  sleep  has  often  brought  a  sober  second- 
108 


^Mechanism   in   Thought   and   Morals 

thought,  which  was  a  surprise  to  the  hasty  con- 
clusion of  the  day  before.  Lord  Polkommet's 
description  of  the  way  he  prepared  himself  for 
a  judicial  decision  is  in  point,  except  for  the 
alcoholic  fertilizer  he  employed  in  planting  his 
ideas:  "Ye  see,  I  first  read  a'  the  pleadings; 
and  then,  after  letting  them  wamble  in  my  wame 
wi'  the  toddy  two  or  three  days,  I  gie  my  ain 
interlocutor. " 

The  problem  of  memory  is  closely  connected 
w4th  the  question  of  the  mechanical  relation 
between  thought  and  structure.  How  intimate 
is  the  alliance  of  memory  with  the  material  con- 
dition of  the  brain,  is  shown  by  the  effect  of  age, 
of  disease,  of  a  blow,  of  intoxication.  I  have 
known  an  aged  person  repeat  the  same  question 
five,  six,  or  seven  times  during  the  same  brief 
visit.  Everybody  knows  the  archbishop's  flavour 
of  apoplexy  in  the  memorv-  as  in  the  other  mental 
powers.  I  was  once  asked  to  see  a  woman  who 
had  just  been  injured  in  the  street.  On  coming 
to  herself,  ' "  Where  am  I  ?  What  has  happened  ? ' ' 
she  asked.  "Knocked  down  by  a  horse  ma'am; 
stunned  a  little:  that  is  all."  A  pause,  "while 
one  with  moderate  haste  might  count  a  hundred,  " 
and  then  again,  "Where  am  I  ?  What  has  hap- 
pened?"— "Knocked  down  by  a  horse,  ma'am; 
stunned  a  little:  that  is  all."  Another  pause, 
and  the  same  question  again;  and  so  on  during 
the  whole  time  I  was  by  her.  The  same  tendency 
to  repeat  a  question  indefinitely  has  been  ob- 
served in  returning  members  of  those  worshipping 
109 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

assemblies  whose  favoviritc  h^-mn  is  "We  Won't 
Go    Home    Till    Morning." 

Is  memory,  then,  a  material  record?  Is  the 
brain,  like  the  rocks  of  the  Sinaitic  Valley, 
written  all  over  with  inscriptions  left  by  the 
long  caravans  of  thought,  as  they  have  passed 
year  after  year  through  its  mysterious  recesses? 
When  we  see  a  distant  railway-train  sliding 
by  us  in  the  same  line,  day  after  day,  we  infer 
the  existence  of  a  track  which  guides  it.  So, 
when  some  dear  old  friend  begins  that  story  we 
remember  so  well;  switching  off  at  the  accus- 
tomed point  of  digression ;  coming  to  a  dead  stop 
at  the  puzzling  question  of  chronology;  off  the 
track  on  the  matter  of  its  being  first  or  second 
cousin  of  somebody's  aunt;  set  on  it  again  by  the 
patient,  listening  wife,  who  knows  it  all  as  she 
knows  her  well-worn  wedding-ring — how  can 
we  doubt  that  there  is  a  track  laid  down  for  the 
story  in  some  permanent  disposition  of  the 
thinking-marrow  ? 

I  need  not  say  that  no  microscope  can  find 
the  tablet  inscribed  with  the  names  of  early  loves, 
the  stains  left  by  tears  of  sorrow  or  contrition, 
the  rent  where  the  thunderbolt  of  passion  has 
fallen,  or  an}-  legible  token  that  such  experiences 
have  formed  a  part  of  the  life  of  the  mortal,  the 
vacant  temple  of  whose  thought  it  is  exploring. 
It  is  only  as  an  inference,  aided  by  illustration 
which  I  will  presently  offer,  that  I  suggest  the 
possible  existence,  in  the  very  substance  of  the 
brain-tissue,  of  those  inscriptions  which  Shakes- 
110 


Mechanism   in   Thous^ht   and   florals 


&' 


peare    must    have    thought  of  when  he  wrote — 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow  ^ 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain. 

The  objection  to  the  existence  of  such  a  material 
record — that  we  renew  our  bodies  many  scores 
of  times  and  yet  retain  our  earHest  recollections 
— is  entirely  met  by  the  fact,  that  a  scar  of  any 
kind  holds  it  own  nearly  through  life  in  spite 
of  all  these  same  changes,  as  we  have  not  far  to 
look  to  find  instances. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  a  billion  of  the 
starry  brain-cells  could  be  packed  in  a  cubic  inch, 
and  that  the  convolutions  contain  one  hundred 
and  thirty-four  cubic  inches,  according  to  the 
estimate  already  given.  My  illustration  is 
derived  from  microscopic  photography.  I  have 
a  glass  slide  on  which  there  is  a  minute  photo- 
graphic picture,  which  is  exactly  covered  when 
the  head  of  a  small  pin  is  laid  upon  it.  In  that 
little  speck  are  clearly  to  be  seen,  by  a  proper 
magnifying  power,  the  following  objects:  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  with  easily  recog- 
nized facsimile  autographs  of  all  the  signers ;  the 
arms  of  all  the  original  thirteen  States;  the  Capitol 
at  Washington;  and  very  good  portraits  of  all  the 
Presidents  of  the  United  States,  from  Washing- 
ton to  Mr.  James  K.  Folk.  These  objects  are 
all  distinguishable  as  a  group  with  a  power  of 
fifty  diameters:  with  a  power  of  three  hundred 
any  one  of  them  becomes  a  sizable  picture.  You 
may  see.  if  you  will,  the  majesty  of  Washington 
on  his  noble  features,  or  the  will  of  Jackson  in 
111 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

those  hard  hnes  of  the  long  face  crowned  with 
that  bristhng  head  of  hair  in  a  perpetual  state 
of  electrical  divergence  and  centrifugal  self- 
assertion.  Remember  that  each  of  these  faces 
is  the  record  of  a  life. 

Now  recollect  that  there  was  an  interval  be- 
tween the  exposure  of  the  negative  in  the  camera 
and  its  development  by  pouring  a  wash  over  it, 
when  all  these  pictured  objects  existed  poten- 
tially, but  absolutely  invisible  and  incapable  of 
recognition,  in  a  speck  of  collodion-film,  which 
a  pin's  head  would  cover;  and  then  think  what 
Alexandrian  libraries,  what  Congressional  docu- 
ment loads  of  positively  intelligible  characters — 
such  as  one  look  of  the  recording  angel  would 
bring  out;  many  of  which  we  can  ourselves 
develop  at  will,  or  which  come  before  our  eyes 
unbidden,  like  "Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin" 
— might  be  held  in  those  convolutions  of  the 
brain  which  wrap  the  talent  entrusted  to  us. 
too  often  as  the  folded  napkin  of  the  slothful 
ser\'ant  hid  the  treasure  his  master  had  lent  him. 

Three  facts,  so  familiar  that  I  need  only  allude 
to  them,  show  how  much  more  is  recorded  in  the 
Tnemory  than  we  may  ever  take  cognizance  of. 
The  first  is  the  conviction  of  having  been  in  the 
same  precise  circumstances  once  or  many  times 
before.  Dr.  Wigan  says,  never  but  once;  but 
such  is  not  my  experience.  The  second  is  the 
panorama  of  their  past  lives,  said,  by  people 
rescued  from  drowning,  to  have  flashed  before 
them.  I  had  it  once  myself,  accompanied  by 
112 


]\Iechanism   in   Thouo:ht   and   ]^Iorals 


!=>' 


an  ignoble  ducking  and  scrambling  self-rescue. 
The  third  is  the  revival  of  apparently  obsolete 
impressions,  of  which  many  strange  cases  are 
related  in  nervous  young  women  and  in  dying 
persons,  and  which  the  story  of  the  dog  Argus 
in  the  "Odyssey,"  and  of  the  parrot  so  charm- 
ingly told  by  Campbell,  would  lead  us  to  suppose 
not  of  rare  occurrence  in  animals.  It  is  possible, 
therefore,  and  I  have  tried  to  show  that  it  is  not 
improbable,  that  memory  is  a  material  record; 
that  the  brain  is  scarred  and  seamed  with  infini- 
tesimal hieroglyphics,  as  the  features  are  en- 
graved with  the  traces  of  thought  and  passion. 
And,  if  this  is  so,  must  not  the  record,  we  ask, 
perish  with  the  organ  ?  Alas  !  how  often  do  we 
see  it  perish  before  the  organ ! — the  mighty 
satirist  tamed  into  oblivious  imbecility;  the  great 
scholar  wandering  without  sense  of  time  or 
place  among  his  alcoves,  taking  his  books  one 
by  one  from  the  shelves  and  fondly  patting  them ; 
a  child  once  more  among  his  toys,  but  a  child 
whose  to-morrows  come  hungr\%  and  not  full- 
handed — come  as  birds  of  prey  in  the  place  of 
the  sweet  singers  of  morning.  We  must  all 
become  as  little  children  if  we  live  long  enough ; 
but  how  blank  an  existence  the  wrinkled  infant 
must  carry  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  if  the 
Power  that  gave  him  memory  Cv^es  not  repeat 
the  miracle  by  restoring  it ! 


113 


MEMORY 

Hexry   Maudslev,    M.  D. 

[Dr.  Maudslev,  of  London,  is  an  eminent  physician  and 
psychologist.  His  works  include  "Body  and  Mind,"  "Body 
and  Will,"  "Responsibility  in  Mental  Disease,"  "Pathology 
of  the  Mind,"  all  published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New- 
York.  From  the  work  last  mentioned  the  following  is  part 
of  the  chapter  on  Memory  and  Imagination.] 

No  MEXTAL  development  would  be  possible 
without  memon.-.  for  if  a  man  possessed  it  not  he 
would  be  obliged  to  begin  his  conscious  life 
afresh  with  each  impression  made  upon  him, 
and  would  be  incapable  of  any  education.  We 
cannot  perhaps  better  define  memory  than, 
following  Locke,  as  the  power  which  the  mind 
has  "to  revive  perceptions  which  it  once  had 
with  this  additional  perception  annexed  to  them, 
that  it  has  had  them  before; "  in  other  words,  as 
the  power  or  process  by  which  that  which  has 
been  once  known  is,  when  r^ resented  to  the 
mind,  known  as  a  pre\'ious  mental  experience, 
that  is,  is  recognized.  When  people  speak  of 
ideas  being  laid  up  in  the  memory,  they  of  course 
speak  metaphorically;  there  is  no  such  repository 
in  which  ideas  are  stored  up,  ready  to  be  brought 
out  when  required  for  use ;  when  an  idea  which  we 
have  once  had  is  excited  again,  there  is  simply  a 
reproduction  of  the  same  nervous  current,  with 
115 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

the  conscious  addition  that  it  is  a  reproduction — 
it  is  the  same  idea  plus  the  consciousness  that  it 
is  the  same.  The  question  then  suggests  itself, 
What  is  the  physical  condition  of  this  conscious- 
ness ?  What  is  the  modification  of  the  anatomi- 
cal substrata  of  fibres  and  cells,  or  of  their  physi- 
ological activity,  which  is  the  occasion  of  this 
plus  clement  in  the  reproduced  idea  ?  It  may  be 
supposed  that  the  first  activity  did  leave  behind 
it,  when  it  subsided,  some  after-efTect,  some 
modification  of  the  nerve  element,  whereby  the 
nerve  circuit  was  disposed  to  fall  again  readily 
into  the  same  action;  such  disposition  appearing 
in  consciousness  as  recognition  or  memory. 
Memory  is,  in  fact,  the  conscious  phase  of  this 
physiological  disposition  when  it  becomes  active 
or  discharges  its  functions  on  the  recurrence  of 
the  particular  mental  experience.  To  assist  our 
conception  of  what  may  happen,  let  us  suppose 
the  individual  nerve-elements  to  be  endowed 
with  their  own  consciousness,  and  let  us  assume 
them  to  be,  as  I  have  supposed,  modified  in  a 
certain  way  by  the  first  experience;  it  is  hard  to 
conceive  that  when  they  fall  into  the  same  action 
on  another  occasion  they  should  not  recognize 
or  remember  it;  for  the  second  action  is  a  repro- 
duction of  the  first,  with  the  addition  of  what 
it  contains  from  the  after-effects  of  the  first.  As 
we  have  assumed  the  process  to  be  conscious, 
this  reproduction  with  its  addition  would  be  a 
memory  or  remembrance. 

Psychology  afTcjrds  us  not  the  least  hclj)  in  this 
116 


Memory 

matter,  for  in  describing  memory-  as  a  faculty  of 
the  mind  or  the  conservative  facuhy  it  does  no 
more  than  present  us  with  a  name  in  place  of  our 
explanation.  But  we  do  get  nearer  realities  when 
we  go  down  to  the  organic  aptitude  which,  in 
consequence  of  an  action,  there  is  to  the  recur- 
rence of  a  similar  action  on  another  occasion. 
And  physiology  presents  us  with  many  illustra- 
tions of  such  organized  aptitudes.  Take,  for 
example,  the  education  of  our  movements:  a 
designed  movement  is  performed  at  first  slowly 
and  clumsily,  and  it  is  only  by  giving  great  pains 
to  it  and  frequently  repeating  it  that  we 
acquire  the  skill  to  perform  it  easily  and  quickly; 
the  aptitude  thereto  being  at  last  so  completely 
organized  in  the  proper  nervous  centres  that  it 
may  be  performed  without  consciousness  on  our 
part,  quite  automatically.  Thus  it  appears  that 
memory  in  this  case  becomes  less  conscious  as  it 
becomes  more  complete,  until,  when  it  has 
reached  its  greatest  perfection  and  is  performed 
with  the  most  facility,  it  is  entirely  unconscious. 
After  which,  if  we  are  psychologists  who  are  con- 
tent to  rest  in  words  and  forbear  to  pursue  the 
facts  w^hich  they  denote,  we  must  cease  to  speak 
of  it  as  memory' :  it  has  become  custom,  or  habit, 
or  automatism.  But  if  we  go  beneath  words  to 
the  property  of  the  motor  nerve-centres  whereby 
they  react  in  a  definite  way  to  impressions  made 
upon  them,  organically  register  their  experience, 
and  so  acquire  by  education  their  special  faculties, 
we  perceive  that  we  have  not  to  do  in  the  higher 
117 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

ner\-e-centres  with  fundamentally  different 
properties  of  nerve  element,  but  with  different 
functions  which  depend  upon  the  same  funda- 
mental property.  Substitute  the  highest  nerve- 
centres  for  the  motor  nerve  centres,  and  the  com- 
plex idea  for  the  complex  movement,  and  what 
has  been  said  of  the  latter  is  strictly  true  of  the 
former;  the  idea,  like  the  movement,  is  accom- 
panied with  less  consciousness  the  more  com- 
pletely it  is  organized,  and  when  it  has  been  com- 
pletely organized  it  takes  its  part  automatically 
in  our  mental  operations,  being  performed,  as 
a  habitual  movement  is  performed, automatically. 
The  physiological  condition  of  memory-  is,  then, 
the  organic  process  by  which  nerve-experiences 
in  the  different  centres  are  registered;  and  to 
recollect  is  to  revive  these  experiences  in  the 
highest  centres,  the  functions  of  which  are  at- 
tended with  consciousness — to  stimulate,  by  ex- 
ternal or  internal  causes,  their  residua,  aptitudes, 
dispositions,  or  whatever  else  we  may  choose 
to  call  them,  into  functional  activity.  Stimu- 
lated from  without,  they  constitute  recognition, 
that  is,  cognition  with  memory  of  former  cog- 
nition; stimulated  from  within,  they  constitute 
recollection. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  as  Dr.  Darwin  re- 
marked many  years  ago,  that  in  dealing  with 
memory  we  have  to  do  not  with  laws  of  light, 
but  with  laws  of  life,  and  that  the  misleading 
notion  of  images  or  ideas  of  objects  being  stored 
up  in  the  mind  has  been  derived  from  our  ex- 
118 


Memory 

perience  of  the  action  of  light  upon  the  retina.  If 
we  would  understand  the  laws  of  organization 
in  the  highest  nerve-centres,  we  shall  certainly 
do  well  to  study  organic  processes  generally;  it 
would  be  not  less  absurd  to  attempt  to  under- 
stand the  higher  processes  without  giving  atten- 
tion to  the  lower,  than  it  would  be  to  attempt  to 
build  a  house  without  taking  pains  to  lay  its 
foundations  securely.  It  is  a  plain  matter  of 
observation  that  other  organic  elements  besides 
nervous  elements  perpetuate  impressions  made 
upon  them,  which  they  may  accordingly  in  a 
certain  sense  be  said  to  remember;  the  virus  of 
smallpox,  for  example,  makes  an  impression 
upon  all  the  elements  of  the  body,  which  they 
never  lose,  although  it  becomes  fainter  with  the 
lapse  of  time;  in  some  unknown  way  it  modifies 
their  constitution  so  that  ever  aften\'ards  their 
susceptibilities  are  changed.  The  scar  which 
is  left  after  the  heahng  of  a  wound  in  a  child's 
finger  keeps  the  same  relative  proportion  to  the 
finger  through  life,  growing  as  it  grows;  for  the 
elements  of  the  new  tissue  not  only  renew  them- 
selves particle  by  particle,  and  thus  perpetuate 
it,  but  they  extend  it  in  relation  with  the  growth 
of  the  surrounding  parts.  We  need  not  brave 
the  fire  of  psychological  scorn  by  calling  this 
retention  of  impressions  memory,  or  care  greatly 
what  it  is  called,  so  long  as  due  heed  is  given  to 
the  fact;  but  we  may  be  permitted  to  perceive  in 
it  the  same  physiological  process  which,  in  the 
cortical  [outer]  layers  of  the  cerebral  [brain's] 
il9 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

hemispheres,  is  the  condition  of  memory,  and 
of  habit  in  thought.  Moreover,  it  may  be  fairly 
demanded  of  the  psychologists  that  they  be  con- 
sistent, and  that  they  no  longer  use  the  word 
memory  to  denote  those  mental  processes  which 
have  been  so  completely  organized  that  they 
take  place  without  consciousness;  if  it  be  wrong, 
as  they  profess,  to  assume  or  imply  an  uncon- 
scious memory,  it  must  be  still  more  wrong  to 
assume  or  imply  an  unconscious  memory,  it  must 
be  still  more  wrong  to  assume  or  imply  an  uncon- 
scious consciousness,  as  they  sometimes  do. 

In  any  case,  the  foregoing  considerations  can- 
not fail  to  show  how  misleading  it  is  to  look  upon 
perceptions  as  mere  pictures  of  nature,  and 
upon  the  mind  as  a  vast  canvas  on  which  they 
are  cunningly  painted;  the  real  process  is  one 
of  organization,  and  it  is  rightly  conceivable  only 
by  the  aid  of  ideas  derived  from  the  observation 
of  organic  development — namely,  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  Assimilation  of  the  like  and 
Differentiation  of  the  unlike.  Nowhere  is  it 
more  necessary  than  in  the  study  of  memory  to 
apprehend  clearly  that  what  we  call  mind  is 
the  function  of  a  mental  organization ;  for  thereby 
we  get  rid  at  once  of  many  empty  discussions 
which  have  been  carried  on  without  definite 
result;  as,  for  example,  whether  memory  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  past,  or  a  knowledge  of  the 
present  with  a  belief  of  the  past,  and  the  like. 
Moreover,  this  conception  of  a  mental  organiza- 
tion is  indispensable  to  the  explanation  of  the 
120 


]\Icmory 

manifold  varieties  of  partial  or  general  loss  of 
memory  which  are  produced  by  injury,  disease 
and  decay  of  brain;  for  memory  is  good  or  bad 
according  to  bodily  states,  is  impaired  in  various 
ways  by  disease,  decays  with  the  decay  of  struc- 
ture in  old  age,  and  is  extinguished  with  the 
extinction  of  life  in  the  brain. 

From  of  old  two  kinds  of  memor}'  have  been 
distinguished,  according  as  the  object  remembered 
occurs  to  the  mind  spontaneously,  or  is  volun- 
tarily sought  for;  the  former  being  known  as 
memory  proper,  the  latter  as  recollection.  It  is 
certain  that  we  do  recognize  this  difference, 
which  common  language  attests,  between  that 
which  is  revived  without  any  effort,  and  that 
which  we  endeavour  to  recover  by  an  effort ;  and 
that  men  differ  much,  by  virtue  of  natural  ca- 
pacities, both  in  memory^  and  in  power  of  recollec- 
tion. No  doubt  much  of  the  difference  in  both 
cases  is  due  to  the  degree  of  attention  which  is 
given  to  the  subject  when  it  is  first  presented  to 
the  mind,  but  this  will  not  account  satisfactorily 
for  all  the  difference  which  is  observed;  some 
persons  being  able  to  repeat  with  great  ease  a 
row  of  figures,  a  number  of  dates,  or  several 
lines  of  poetry,  after  reading  them  over  once, 
while  others  fail  to  do  so  with  equal  success  after 
reading  them  over  many  times.  Extraordinary 
instances  have  been  recorded  of  this  exactness  of 
memory  for  details  reaching  back  to  the  earliest 
periods  of  life.  I  have  seen  an  imbecile  in  the 
Earlswood  Asylum  for  idiots  who  can  repeat 
121 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

accurately  a  page  or  more  of  any  book  which  he 
has  read  years  before,  even  though  it  was  a  book 
which  he  did  not  understand  in  the  least ;  and 
I  once  saw  an  epileptic  youth,  morally  imbecile, 
who  would,  shutting  his  eyes,  repeat  a  leading 
article  in  a  newspaper  word  for  word,  after  read- 
ing it  once.  This  kind  of  memory,  in  which  the 
person  seems  to  read  a  photographic  copy  of  for- 
mer impressions  with  his  mind's  eye,  is  not 
indeed  commonly  associated  with  great  intel- 
lectual power;  for  what  reason  I  know  not,  unless 
it  be  that  the  mind  to  which  it  belongs  is  pre- 
vented by  the  very  excellence  of  its  power  of 
apprehending  and  recalling  separate  facts  from 
rising -to  that  discernment  of  their  higher  rela- 
tions which  is  involved  in  reasoning  and  judg- 
ment, and  so  stays  in  a  function  which  should 
be  the  foundation  of  its  further  development; 
or  that,  being  by  some  natural  defect  prevented 
from  rising  to  the  higher  sphere  of  comprehension 
of  relations,  it  applies  all  its  energies  to  the  appre- 
hension of  details.  Certainly  one  runs  some 
risk,  by  overloading  the  memory  of  a  child  with 
details,  of  arresting  the  development  of  the  men- 
tal powers:  stereotyping  details  on  the  brain, 
we  prevent  that  further  development  of  it  which 
consists  in  rising  from  concrete  perception  to 
conception  of  relations.  However,  it  must  be 
allowed  that  there  have  been  a  few  remarkable 
instances  of  extraordinary  men  who  have  com- 
bined a  wonderful  memory  for  details  with  the 
possession  of  the  highest  intellectual  powers. 
122 


Memory 

If  we  now  proceed  to  examine  closely  the 
nature  of  recollection,  it  will  be  found  that  the 
difference  between  it  and  simple  memory  is  not 
fundamentally  so  great  as  appears  on  the 
surface.  When  we  voluntarily  try  hard  to 
remember  something  which  has  been  for- 
gotten, and  succeed  in  the  end,  the  actual  revival 
is  done  unconsciously  and,  as  it  were,  spon- 
taneously; for  it  is  plain  that  if  we  were  con- 
scious of  what  we  want  we  should  not  need  to 
recollect  it,  inasmuch  as  it  would  already  be  in 
possession;  and  it  is  furthermore  plain  that  a 
defiinte  act  of  volition  recalling  it  must  imply 
a  consciousness  of  it,  inasmuch  as  it  is  impossible 
to  will  what  we  are  not  conscious  of.  Arbitrarv' 
recollection  by  an  act  of  will  is  therefore  non- 
sense. What  we  really  do  when  we  try  to  re- 
collect is  to  apply  attention  to  words  or  ideas 
which  have,  in  our  past  experience,  accidental 
or  essential  relations  to,  or  associations  with, 
the  forgotten  word  or  idea,  voluntarily  to  keep 
these  ideas  active  by  making  them  consciousness 
and  to  trust  to  their  power  of  awakening  into 
activity  that  which  it  is  desired  to  recall;  indeed, 
it  is  notorious  that  the  best  way  of  succeeding  is, 
having  held  the  related  ideas  energetically  in 
attention  for  a  time,  to  allow  the  thoughts  to 
pass  to  other  things,  when  the  lost  idea  will, 
after  a  longer  or  shorter  time — sometimes  indeed 
after  days — recur  to  the  mind.  The  actual  pro- 
cess of  reproduction  is  therefore  one  of  simple 
or  spontaneous  memory;  we  prepare  the  way  for 
123 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

it  by  stimulating  into  action  the  related  ideas, 
but  we  positively  interfere  with  its  success  if. 
by  continuing  to  keep  them  in  attention,  we  do 
not  permit  them  to  do  their  work  spontaneously ; 
the  reason  of  this  being  that  we  thereby  hinder 
the  propagation  of  their  activity  to  other  nerve- 
circuits.  We  shall  understand  this  the  better 
if  we  realize  that  consciousness  is  the  result 
of  a  certain  activity  of  idea,  not  driven  to  it,  but 
drawn  by  it,  and  get  rid  of  the  metaphysical 
notion  that  it  is  some  mysterious  power  which 
we  direct  voluntarily  to  the  idea  in  order  to  make 
it  active. 

It  will  not  be  amiss,  before  passing  from  this 
subject,  to  take  note  of  and  to  ponder  that  cer- 
tainty which,  in  trying  to  recollect  something, 
we  have  of  our  possession  of  what  we  are  thus 
striving  to  gain  consciously,  though  we  are  not 
conscious  what  it  is.  We  have  the  clearest  con- 
viction that,  although  we  have  forgotten  it,  we 
still  have  it  and  may  recover  it.  How  comes  it 
to  pass  that  we  are  so  sure  of  the  existence  of  that 
of  which  we  are  not  conscious  ?  In  the  first 
place,  it  would  appear  to  supply  an  argument 
in  support  of  the  theory  that  something  has  been 
left  behind  in  the  nerve-circuit  ministering  to 
the  forgotten  idea,  in  other  words,  retained  by 
it,  which  differentiates  it  from  other  nerve-cir- 
cuits, disposes  it  to  a  repetition  of  its  former 
activity,  and  produces  the  conviction  of  a  latent 
possession,  even  when  it  is  not  active,  or  at  any 
rate  not  active  enough  to  awaken  consciousness- 
124 


^lemory 

In  the  second  place,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  forgotten  idea  had  associations  with  other 
ideas,  which  are  really  part  of  its  meaning;  it 
may  well  be,  therefore,  that  when  these  are  active 
and  occupy  the  attention,  while  it  remains  in- 
active and  below  the  horizon  of  consciousness, 
there  is  a  tendency  or  sort  of  effort  to  reopen 
the  former  paths  of  association,  in  order  to  their 
completeness — to  make  the  circuit,  so  to  speak; 
and  that  it  is  the  consciousness  of  this  tendency 
or  effort  which  gives  rise  to  the  certainty  which 
we  have  of  something  forgotten.  Certain  it  is, 
that  when  a  stimulus  excites  one  of  two  move- 
ments which  have  taken  place  together  or  in 
succession  on  former  occasions,  there  is  a  tend- 
ency, when  the  stimulus  is  powerful  or  continued, 
to  the  reproduction  of  the  associated  movement ; 
there  is  a  diffusion  of  the  stimulus  along  the 
accustomed  path  to  the  associated  motor  centres, 
and  a  union  of  movements  is  the  result.  A 
piece  of  poetry  which  has  been  thoroughh'  learnt 
may  be  repeated  mechanically,  as  a  tune  may  be 
whistled,  when  the  proper  verbal  movements 
have  been  once  started;  indeed,  the  repetition 
in  such  case  is  most  successful  when  conscious- 
ness is  not  too  much  occupied  with  it;  for  it 
frequently  happens,  if  we  think  about  the  words 
which  we  are  repeating,  we  become  uncertain 
and  forget,  and  are  obliged,  in  order  to  succeed, 
to  begin  again  and  allow  the  succession  of  move- 
ments to  go  on  automatically.  We  impede  the 
operation  of  the  spontaneous  memory,  upon 
125 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

which  we  really  depend,  when,  by  maintaining 
the  activity  of  a  word  in  consciousness  as  atten- 
tion, we  hinder  the  propagation  thereof  to  the 
associated  nerve-circuits. 

When  a  person  who  is  conscious  of  an  idea  is 
striving  to  revive  a  related  idea  which  he  has 
forgotten,  he  presents  an  example  of  memory  in 
the  making;  for  he  is  striving  to  revive  the  yet 
incomplete  organic  union  between  them,  which 
was  the  result  of  the  original  apprehension  of 
their  relations,  and  which,  when  complete,  will 
cause  the  one  idea  to  recall  the  other  instantly 
and  without  the  least  effort,  just  as  a  single  sensa- 
tion of  an  object  at  once  revives  the  cluster  of 
sensations  which  are  combined  in  the  perception 
of  it.  The  process  of  intellectual  development 
consists  in  the  mental  organization  of  related 
ideas,  as  internal  representatives  of  external 
relations  in  nature,  and  in  making  this  organ- 
ization so  complete  that  a  number  of  associated 
ideas  shall  act  like  a  single  idea,  being  combined 
into  a  complex  product  and  recalled  instantly 
and  without  conscious  effort,  just  as  a  complex 
movement  is.  Then  the  memory  is  so  complete 
that  we  must  cease  to  call  it  memory,  because  it 
is  unconscious.  In  fact,  spontaneous  recollec- 
tion is  at  an  end  when  involuntary  memory 
begins,  and  involuntary  memory  merges  grad- 
ually into  a  reproduction  of  former  mental  ex- 
periences which  is  as  completely  automatic  as 
the  habitual  movements  of  our  daily  life.  And 
well  it  may  be;  for  the  same  organic  property  of 
126 


Memory 

nerve  element — indeed,  I  might  say,  the  same 
fundamental  property  of  organization — is  at  the 
bottom  of  both. 

Thus  much  concerning  the  nature  and  function 
of  memory.  Upon  its  basis  rests  the  possibility 
of  mental  development,  in  which  there  are,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  the  organic  registration 
of  the  simple  ideas  of  the  senses;  the  assimilation 
of  the  like  in  ideas  which  takes  place  in  the 
production  or  evolution  of  general  ideas;  the 
assimilation  of  the  properties  common  to  two 
or  more  general  ideas  into  an  abstract  idea;  the 
special  organization  or  differentiation,  or  discrimi- 
nation, of  unlike  ideas;  the  organic  combination 
of  the  ideas  derived  from  the  different  senses 
into  one  complex  idea,  with  the  further  manifold 
combinations  of  complex  ideas  into  what  Hartley 
called  duplex  ideas.  In  fact,  no  limit  is  assign- 
able to  the  complexity  of  combinations  which 
may  go  to  the  formation  of  a  compound  idea. 
Take,  for  example,  the  idea  of  the  universe. 
But  how  comes  it  to  pass  that  a  new  imaginative 
creation  of  the  mind,  to  which  nothing  in  nature 
answers,  is  effected  ?  By  the  same  process 
fundamentally  as  that  by  which  our  general  and 
abstract  ideas  are  formed.  For  when  we  con- 
sider the  matter,  it  appears  that  there  are  no 
actual  outside  existences  answering  to  our  most 
abstract  ideas,  which  are,  therefore,  so  far  new 
creations  of  the  mind;  in  their  formation  there 
is  a  blending  or  coalescence  of  the  like  relations 
in  two  concrete  ideas — the  development  of  a 
127 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

concept,  there  is,  as  it  were,  an  extraction  of  the 
essential  out  of  the  particular,  a  sublimation  of 
the  concrete;  and,  by  the  creation  of  a  new  world 
in  which  these  essential  ideas  supersede  the  con- 
crete ideas,  the  power  of  the  mind  is  most  largely- 
extended.  Now,  although  there  are  no  concrete 
objects  in  nature  answering  to  these  abstract 
ideas,  yet  these  are  none  the  less,  when  rightly 
formed,  valid  and  real  subjective  existences  ex- 
pressing or  signifying  the  essential  relations  of 
things,  as  the  flower  which  crowns  development 
expresses  the  essential  nature  of  the  plant.  Thus 
it  is  that  we  rise  from  the  idea  of  a  particular 
man  to  the  general  idea  of  man,  and  from  that  to 
the  abstract  idea  of  virtue  as  a  quality  of  man; 
so  that  for  the  future  we  can  make  use  of  the 
abstract  idea  in  all  our  reasoning,  without  being 
compelled  to  make  continual  reference  to  the 
concrete.  Herein,  be  it  remembered  again,  we 
have  a  process  corresponding  with  that  which  min- 
isters to  the  production  of  our  motor  intuitions; 
the  acquired  faculty  of  certain  co-ordinate  move- 
ments by  means  of  which  complicated  acts  are 
automatically  performed,  and  we  are  able  to  do, 
almost  in  the  tv/inkling  of  an  eye,  what  would 
cost  hours  of  labour  were  we  compelled  on  each 
occasion  to  go  deliberately  through  the  process 
of  special  adaptation,  is  the  equivalent,  on  the 
motor  side,  of  the  general  idea  by  which  so  much 
time  and  labour  are  saved  in  reasoning:  in  both 
cases  there  is  an  internal  development  in  accord- 
ance with  ftmdamental  laws,  and  the  organized 
128 


Memory 

result  is,  as  ever\'  new  phase  of  development  is, 
a  new  creation.  Creation  is  not  by  fits  and 
starts,  but  it  is  continuous  in  nature. 


129 


COMMON    SENSE 
William   Boyd   Carpexter,   M.  D. 

[Dr.  Carpenter  was  one  of  the  leading  men  of  science  in 
the  generation  which  has  recently  passed  away.  He  was 
a  physician  and  psychologist  of  mark,  and  withal  a  geogra- 
pher of  erudition  and  extensive  travel.  His  famous  work, 
"Principles  of  Mental  Physiology,"  is  published  by  D- 
Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.  Its  eleventh  chapter,  minus 
a  few  paragraphs,  is  here  presented.] 

There  are  two  principal  forms  of  common 
sense  which  it  is  desirable  clearly  to  distinguish. 
The  first  is  what  the  philosopher  means  by  com- 
mon sense,  when  he  attributes  to  it  the  formation 
of  those  original  convictions  or  ultimate  beliefs, 
which  cannot  be  resolved  into  simpler  elements, 
and  which  are  accepted  by  every  normally-con- 
stituted human  being  as  direct  cognitions  of  his 
own  mental  states.  ,It  might,  indeed,  be  main- 
tained that  this  necessary  acceptance  of  pro- 
positions which  only  need  to  be  intelligibly 
stated  to  command  unhesitating  and  universal 
assent,  cannot  rightly  be  termed  an  act  of  judg- 
ment. But  just  as  sense-perceptions,  which  are 
intuitive  in  the  lower  animals,  have  been  acquired 
in  man  by  a  process  of  self-education  in  the 
earliest  stages,  in  which  acts  of  judgment  are 
continually  called  for,  so  may  we  regard  the 
autocratic  deliverances  of  the  universal  common 
131 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

sense  of  mankind  as  really  having,  in  the  first 
instance,  the  characters  of  true  judgments,  each 
expressing  the  general  resultant  of  uniform  ex- 
perience,— which  may  be  partly  of  the  individual, 
and  partly  that  of  the  race  embodied  in  the 
constitution  of  each  member  of  it. 

The  second  or  popular  acceptance  of  the  term 
common  sense,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  of  an 
attribute  which  judges  of  things  whose  self- 
evidence  is  not  equally  apparent  to  every  individ- 
ual, but  presents  itself  to  different  individuals  in 
very  different  degrees,  according  in  part  to  the 
original  constitution  of  each,  and  in  part  to  the 
range  of  his  experience  and  degree  in  which  he 
has  profited  by  it.  This  is  the  form  of  common 
sense  by  which  we  are  mainly  guided  in  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life:  but  inasmuch  as  we  no 
longer  find  its  deliverances  in  uniform  accordance, 
but  encounter  continual  divergences  of  judg- 
ment as  to  what  things  are  self-evident, — some 
being  so  to  A  whilst  they  are  not  so  to  B,  and 
others  being  self-evident  to  B  which  are  not  so  to 
A, — it  cannot  be  trusted  as  an  autocratic  or 
infallible  authority.  And  yet,  as  Dr.  Reid  trul}^ 
says,  "disputes  very  often  terminate  in  an  appeal 
to  common  sense; "  this  being  especially  the  case, 
when  to  doubt  its  judgment  would  be  ridiculous. 

If  the  view  here  taken  be  correct,  these  two 
forms — which  may  be  designated  respectively 
as  elementary  and  as  ordinary  common  sense — 
have  fundamentally  the  same  basis;  and  we  may 
further  connect  with  them  as  having  a  similar 
132 


Common    Sense 

genesis,  those  special  forms  of  common  sense, 
which  are  the  attributes  of  such  as  ha\e  applied 
themselves  in  a  scientific  spirit  to  any  particular 
course  of  inquiry, — things  coming  to  be  per- 
fectly self-evident  to  men  of  such  special  culture, 
which  ordinary  men,  or  men  whose  special  culture 
has  lain  in  a  different  direction,  do  not  apprehend 
as  such. 

The  judgment  of  common  sense  as  to  any  self- 
evident  truth,  may  be  defined  as  the  immediate 
or  instinctive  response  that  is  given  (in  psycholog- 
ical language)  by  the  automatic  action  of  the 
mind,  or  (in  physiological  language)  by  the  reflex- 
action  of  the  brain  to  any  question  which  can  be 
answered  by  such  a  direct  appeal.  The  nature  and 
value  of  that  response  will  depend  upon  the  ac- 
quired condition  of  the  mind,  or  of  the  brain,  at  the 
time  it  is  given ;  that  condition  being  the  general 
resultant  of  the  whole  psychical  activity  of  the 
individual.  The  particular  form  of  that  activity 
is  determined,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  first  place, 
by  his  original  constitution;  secondly,  by  the 
influences  which  have  been  early  brought  to 
bear  upon  it  from  without;  and  thirdly,  by  his 
own  power  of  self-direction.  And  it  may  be 
said  that  while  the  elementary  form  of  common 
sense  depends  mainly  upon  the  first  of  these  iac- 
tors,  its  ordinary  form  chiefly  arises  out  of  the 
first  and  second,  and  its  special  forms  almost 
exclusively  out  of  the  third; — the  response  being 
given,  in  each  case,  by  a  nervous  mechanism,  in 
the  organization  of  which  the  generalized  results 
133 


]\Iasterpieccs   of   Science 

of  the  past  experiences  of  consciousness  (whether 
of  the  race  or  of  the  individual)  have  become 
embodied. 

The  parallel  between  the  cerebral  action 
which  furnishes  the  mechanism  of  thought  now 
under  consideration,  and  the  action  of  the  sen- 
sori-motor  apparatus  which  furnishes  the  mechan- 
ism of  sense  and  motion,  is  extremely  close. 
We  have  seen  that  there  are  certain  sense-per- 
ceptions, which,  although  not  absolutely  intui- 
tive, very  early  come  to  possess — in  every  nor- 
mally constituted  human  being — the  immediate- 
ness  and  perfection  of  those  corresponding  per- 
ceptions which  are  intuitive  in  the  lower  animals; 
and  that  with  these  are  associated  certain  respon- 
dent motions,  which,  though  acquired  by  practice 
in  the  first  instance,  ultimately  come  to  be  per- 
formed as  by  a  second  nature.  Certain  of  these 
motions,  such  as  walking  erect,  are  universally  ac- 
quired; and  thus  obviously  come  to  be  the  ex- 
pressions of  the  original  endowments  of  the 
mechanism,  trained  by  an  experience  very 
similar  in  the  uniformity  of  its  character  to  that 
which  educates  the  elementary  form  of  common 
sense.  For  it  must  be  clear  to  any  one  who 
compares  the  erect  progression  of  a  child  who 
has  just  learned  to  walk,  with  that  of  a  dancing 
dog  or  even  of  a  chimpanzee,  that  while  exper- 
ience makes  its  acquirement  possible  in  each 
case,  only  an  organism  which  is  at  the  same  time 
structurally  adapted  for  erect  progression  and 
possessed  of  a  special  co-ordinating  faculty,  can 
134 


Common   Sense 

ttirn  such  experience  to  full  account.  The 
balancing  the  body  in  the  erect  position  at  start- 
ing, the  maintenance  of  that  balance  by  a  new 
adjustment  of  the  centre  of  gravity  as  the  base 
of  support  is  shifted  from  side  to  side  and  from 
behind  forwards,  and  the  alternate  lifting  and 
advance  of  the  legs,  involve  the  harmonious  co- 
operation of  almost  all  the  muscles  in  the  body. 
Although  this  co-operation  is  brought  about  in 
the  first  instance  by  the  purposive  direction  of  our 
efforts  towards  a  given  end,  under  the  guidance 
of  our  visual  and  muscular  sensations,  yet  when 
we  have  once  learned  to  walk  erect,  we  find  our- 
selves able  to  maintain  our  balance  without 
any  exertion  of  which  we  are  conscious;  all  that 
is  necessary  for  the  performance  of  this  move- 
ment being  that  a  certain  stimulus  (volitional, 
or  some  other)  shall  call  the  mechanism  into 
activity. — But  further,  we  have  seen  that  special 
powers  of  sense-perception  can  be  acquired  by 
the  habitual  direction  of  the  attention  to  par- 
ticular classes  of  objects;  and  that  special  move- 
ments come  to  be  the  secondarily  automatic 
expression  of  them.  How  nearly  related  these 
are  to  the  preceding,  we  may  assure  ourselves 
by  attending  to  the  process  by  which  an  adult 
learns  to  walk  on  a  narrow  base,  such  as  a  rope 
or  the  edge  of  a  plank.  For  the  co-ordinating 
action  has  here  to  be  gone  through  afresh  under 
altered  and  more  special  conditions,  so  as  to 
give  a  greater  development  to  the  balancing 
power;  yet  when  this  has  been  fully  acquired, 
135 


Masterpieces   of    Science 

it  is  exerted  automatically  with  such  an  im- 
mediateness  and  perfection,  that  a  Blondin  can 
cross  Niagara  on  his  rope  with  no  more  danger 
of  falling  into  the  torrent  beneath,  than  any- 
ordinary  man  would  experience  if  walking  with- 
out side-rails  along  the  broad  platform  of  the 
suspension  bridge  which  spans  it.  Now  since  in 
those  cases  in  which  man  acquires  powers  that 
arc  original  or  intuitive  in  the  lower  animals, 
there  is  the  strongest  reason  for  believing  that  a 
mechanism  forms  itself  in  him  which  is  equi\-- 
alent  to  that  congenitally  possessed  by  them, 
we  seem  fully  justified  in  the  belief  that  in  those 
more  special  forms  of  activity  which  are  the 
result  of  prolonged  training,  the  sensori-motor 
apparatus  grows-to  the  mode  in  which  it  is 
habitually  exercised,  so  as  to  become  fit  for  the 
immediate  execution  of  the  mandate  it  receives: 
it  being  often  found  to  act  not  only  without 
intelligent  direction,  but  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  exertion,  in  immediate  response  to  some 
particular  kind  of  stimulus, — just  as  an  auto- 
maton that  executes  one  motion  when  a  certain 
spring  is  touched,  will  exectite  a  very  different 
one  when  set  going  in  some  other  way. 

There  is  strong  analogical  ground,  then,  for 
the  belief  that  the  higher  part  of  the  nervous 
mechanism  which  is  concerned  in  psychical  ac- 
tion, will  follow  the  same  law;  embodying  the  gen- 
eralized result  of  its  experiences,  so  as  to  become 
able  to  evolve,  by  a  direct  response,  a  result  of 
which  the  attainment  originally  required  the  in- 
136 


Common   Sense 

tervention  of  the  conscious  mind  at  several  inter- 
mediate stages  of  the  process.  What  there  is  strong 
ground  for  beUeving  in  regard  to  the  perceptional 
consciousness,  may  fairly  be  extended  to  the 
ideational,  which  is  so  intimately  connected 
to  it,  the  unconscious  co-ordinating  action,  which 
in  the  former  case  brings  the  whole  experience 
to  bear  upon  the  question,  whilst  the  decisions 
of  the  latter  arc  based  upon  a  limited,  and  there- 
fore one-sided,  view  of  it, — the  defect  of  judg- 
ment being  due  either  to  an  original  want  of  the 
co-ordinating  power,  or  to  disuse  of  the  exercise 
of  it  through  the  limitation  of  the  attention  to 
special  fields  of  study.  It  may  often  be  noticed 
that  children  display  a  power  of  bringing  common 
sense  to  bear  upon  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life, 
which  seems  much  beyond  that  of  their  elders: 
and  yet  a  very  sensible  child  will  often  grow  into 
a  much  less  sensible  man.  Now  the  reason  of 
this  seems  to  be,  that  the  child  perceives  the 
application  of  self-evident  considerations  to  the 
case  at  issue,  without  being  embarrassed  by  a 
number  of  other  considerations  (perhaps  of  a 
trivial  or  conventional  nature)  which  distract 
the  attention  and  unduly  influence  the  judgment 
of  the  adult.  And  the  deli\-erances  of  a  child's 
common  sense  thus  often  resemble  those  of  the 
old  court  fools,  or  jesters,  whose  function  seems 
to  have  been  to  speak  out  home  truths  which 
timid  courtiers  would  not  venture  to  utter. 
]\Ioreover,  as  has  been  well  remarked,  "it  is 
quite  possible  for  minds  of  limited  power  to 
137 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

manage  a  small  range  of  experience  much  better 
than  a  large,  to  get  confused  (as  it  were)  with 
resources  on  too  great  a  scale,  and  therefore  to 
show  far  more  common  sense  within  the  com- 
paratively limited  field  of  childish  experience, 
than  in  the  greater  world  of  society  or  public 
life.  This  is  probably  the  explanation  of  a  thing 
often  seen, — how  very  sagacious  people  instinct- 
ively shrink  from  a  field  which  their  tact  tells 
them  is  too  large  for  them  to  manage,  and  keep 
to  one  where  they  are  really  supreme. " 

Now,  in  so  far  as  our  conscious  mental  activity 
is  under  the  direction  of  our  will,  we  can  improve 
this  form  of  common  sense,  as  to  both  its  range 
and  the  trustworthiness  of  its  judgments,  by 
appropriate  training.  Such  training,  as  regards 
the  purely  intellectual  aspect  of  common  sense, 
will  consist  in  the  determinate  culture  of  the 
habit  of  honestly  seeking  for  truth, — dismissing 
prejudice,  setting  aside  self-interest,  searching 
out  all  that  can  be  urged  on  each  side  of  the 
question  at  issue,  endeavouring  to  assign  to 
every  fact  and  argument  its  real  value,  and  then 
weighing  the  two  aggregates  against  each  other 
with  judicial  impartiality.  For  in  proportion 
to  the  steadiness  with  which  this  course  is  voli- 
tionally  pursued,  must  be  its  effectiveness  in 
shaping  the  mechanism  whose  automatic  action 
constitutes  the  unconscious  thinking,of  which 
the  results  express  themselves  in  our  common- 
sense  judgments. 

The  ordinary  common  sense  of  mankind,  dis- 
138 


Common   Sense 

ciplincd  and  enlarged  by  an  appropriate  culture, 
becomes  one  of  the  most  valuable  instruments  of 
scientific  inquiry';  affording  in  many  instances 
the  best  and  sometimes  the  only,  basis  for  a 
rational  conclusion.  A  typical  case,  in  which 
no  special  knowledge  is  required,  is  afforded  by 
the  flint  implements  of  the  Abbeville  and  Amiens 
gravel  beds.  No  logical  proof  can  be  adduced 
that  the  peculiar  shapes  of  these  flints  were  given 
to  them  by  human  hands;  but  no  unprej- 
udiced person  who  has  examined  them  now 
doubts  it. 

The  evidence  of  design  to  which,  after  an 
examination  of  one  or  two  such  specimens,  we 
should  only  be  justified  in  attaching  a  probable 
value,  derives  an  irresistible  cogency  from  accu- 
mulation. On  the  other  hand,  the  improbability 
that  these  flints  acquired  their  peculiar  shape  by 
accident,  becomes  to  our  minds  greater  and 
greater  as  more  and  more  such  specimens  are 
found;  until  at  last  this  hypothesis,  although  it 
cannot  be  directly  disproved,  is  felt  to  be  almost 
inconceivable,  except  by  minds  previously 
possessed  by  the  dominant  idea  of  the  modem 
origin  of  man.  'And  thus  what  was  in  the  first 
instance  a  matter  of  discussion,  has  now 
become  one  of  those  self-evident  propositions, 
which  claim  the  unhesitating  assent  of  all  whose 
opinion  on  the  subject  is  entitled  to  the  least 
weight. 

We  proceed  upwards,  however,  from  such 
questions  as  the  common  sense  of  mankind 
139 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

generally  is  competent  to  decide,  to  those  in 
which  special  knowledge  is  required  to  give 
value  to  the  judgment:  and  here  we  must  dis- 
tinguish between  those  departments  of  inquiry 
in  which  scientific  conclusions  are  arrived  at  by 
a  process  of  strict  reasoning,  and  those  in  which 
they  partake  of  the  nature  of  common-sense 
judgments. 

Of  the  former  class  we  have  a  typical 
example  in  mathematics,  and  in  those  exact 
sciences  which  make  use  of  mathematics 
as  their  instrument  of  proof;  but  even  in  these, 
it  is  common  sense  which  affords  not  only  the 
basis,  but  the  materials  of  the  fabric.  For 
while  the  axioms  of  geometry  are  self-evident 
truths  which  not  only  do  not  require  proof,  but  are 
not  capable  of  being  proved  in  all  their  univer- 
sality, every  step  of  a  demonstration  is  an  asser- 
tion of  which  our  acceptance  depends  on  our 
incapability  of  conceiving  either  the  contrary  or 
anything  else  than  the  thing  asserted.  And  thus 
the  certain  assurance  of  the  proof  felt  by  every 
person  capable  of  understanding  a  mathematical 
demonstration,  depends  upon  the  conclusive 
self-evidence  of  each  step  of  it.  But  we  not 
unfrequently  meet  with  individuals,  not  deficient 
in  ordinary  common  sense,  who  cannot  be 
brought  to  see  this  self-evidence;  whilst,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  advanced  mathematician,  when 
adventuring  into  new  paths  of  inquiry,  is  able  to 
take  a  great  deal  for  granted  as  self-evident, 
which  at  an  earlier  stage  of  his  researches  would 
140 


Common   Sense 

not  have  so  presented  itself  to  his  mind.  The 
deliverances  of  this  acquired  intuition  can  in 
mcst  cases  be  readily  justified  by  the  reasoning 
process  which  they  have  anticipated.  But  the 
genius  of  a  mathematician — that  is,  his  special 
aptitude  developed  by  special  culture — will 
occasionally  enable  him  to  divine  a  truth,  of 
which,  though  he  may  be  able  to  prove  it  ex- 
perientially,  neither  he  nor  any  other  can  at  the 
time  furnish  a  logical  demonstration.  In  this 
divining  power  we  have  clear  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  a  capacity  which  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  mere  co-ordination  of  ante- 
cedent experiences,  whether  of  the  individual  or 
of  the  race;  and  yet,  as  already  shown,  such  co- 
ordination has  furnished  the  stimulus  to  its 
development. 

Of  those  departments  of  science,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  which  our  conclusions  rest  (like  those 
of  ordinary  common  sense)  not  on  any  one  set 
of  experiences,  but  upon  our  unconscious  co- 
ordination of  the  whole  aggregate  of  our  ex- 
periences,— not  on  the  conclusiveness  of  any  one 
train  of  reasoning,  but  on  the  convergence  of  all 
our  lines  of  thought  towards  one  centre, — geolog}' 
may  be  taken  as  a  typical  example.  For  this 
inquiry  brings  (as  it  were)  into  one  focus,  the 
light  afforded  by  a  great  variety  of  studies. — 
physical  and  chemical,  geographical  and  biolog- 
ical; and  throws  it  on  the  pages  of  that  great 
stone  book  in  which  the  past  history  of  our  globe 
is  recorded.  And  its  real  progress  dates  from 
141 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

the  time  when  that  common  sense  method  of 
interpretation  came  to  be  generally  adopted, 
which  consists  in  seeking  the  explanation  of  past 
changes  in  the  forces  at  present  in  operation, 
instead  of  invoking  (as  the  older  geologists  were 
wont  to  do)  the  aid  of  extraordinary  and  mys- 
terious agencies. 

Of  the  adequacy  of  common  sense  to  arrive 
at  a  decisive  judgment  under  the  guidance  of 
the  convergence  just  indicated,  we  have  a  good 
example  in  the  following  occurrence: — A  man 
having  had  his  pocket  picked  of  a  purse,  and  the 
suspected  thief  having  been  taken  with  a  purse 
upon  him,  the  loser  was  asked  if  he  could  swear 
to  it  as  his  property.  This  he  could  not  do;  but 
as  he  was  able  to  name  not  only  the  precise  sum 
which  the  purse  contained,  but  also  the  pieces 
of  money  of  which  that  sum  consisted,  the  jury 
unhesitatingly  assigned  to  him  the  ownership  of 
the  purse  and  its  contents.  A  mathematician 
could  have  calculated,  from  the  number  of  coins, 
what  were  the  chances  against  the  correctness  of 
a  mere  guess ;  but  no  such  calculation  could  have 
added  to  the  assiu-ance  afforded  by  common  sense, 
that  the  man  who  could  tell  not  only  the  number 
of  coins  in  the  purse,  but  the  value  of  each  one  of 
them,  must  have  been  its  possessor. 

Familiar  instances  of  the  like  formation  of  a 
basis  of  judgment  by  the  unconscious  co-ordina- 
tion of  experiences,  will  be  found  in  many  occur- 
rences of  daily  life;  in  which  the  effect  of  special 
training  manifests  itself  in  the  formation  of 
142 


Common   Sense 

decisions,  that  arc  not  the  less  to  be  trusted 
because  they  do  not  rest  on  assignable  reasons: — 
Thus,  a  literary  man,  who  has  acquired  by  cul- 
ture the  art  of  writing  correctly  and  forcibly, 
without  having  ever  formally  studied  either 
grammar,  the  logical  analysis  of  sentences,  or 
the  artifices  of  rhetoric,  will  continually  feel 
in  criticizing  his  own  writings  or  those  of  others, 
that  there  is  something  faulty  in  style  or  con- 
struction, and  may  be  able  to  furnish  the  re- 
quired correction,  whilst  altogether  unable  to 
say  in  what  the  passage  is  wrong,  or  why  his 
amendment  sets  it  right.  Or,  to  pass  into  an 
entirely  different  sphere,  a  practised  detective 
will  often  arrive,  by  a  sort  of  divination,  at  a 
conviction  of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  a  sus- 
pected person,  which  ultimately  turns  out  to  be 
correct;  and  yet  he  could  not  convey  to  another 
any  adequate  reasons  for  his  assurance,  which 
depends  upon  the  impression  made  upon  his 
mind  by  minute  details  of  look,  tone,  gesture,  or 
manner,  which  have  little  or  no  significance  to 
ordinary  observers,  but  which  his  specially 
cultured  common  sense  instinctively  appre- 
hends. 

But  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  our  common 
sense  judgments  are  so  largely  influenced  by  the 
emotional  part  of  our  nature — our  individual 
likes  and  dislikes,  the  predominance  of  our  selfish 
or  of  our  benevolent  affections,  and  so  on, — 
that  their  value  will  still  more  essentially  depend 
upon  the  earnestness  and  persistency  of  our 
143 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

self-direction  towards  the  right.*  The  more 
faithfully,  strictly,  and  perseveringh^  we  try  to 
disentangle  ourselves  from  all  selfish  aims,  all 
conscious  prejudices,  the  more  shall  we  find  our- 
selves progressively  emancipated  from  those  un- 
conscious prejudices,  M^hich  cling  around  us  as 
results  of  early  misdirection  and  habits  of  thought 
and  which  (having  become  embodied  in  our 
organization)  are  more  dangerous  than  those 
against  which  we  knowingly  put  ourselves  on 
guard.  And  so,  in  proportion  to  the  degree  in 
which  we  habituate  ourselves  to  try  every  ques- 
tion by  first  principles,  rather  than  by  the 
supposed  dictates  of  a  temporary"  expediency,  will 
the  mechanism  of  our  unconscious  thinking  form 
itself  in  accordance  with  those  principles,  so 
often  as  to  evolve  results  which  satisfy  both  our- 
selves and  others  with  their  self-evident  truthful- 
ness   and  rectitude.     It  has  been  well  remarked 

*  i^ote  by  Editor.     Sir  Henry  Taylor  in  "The  Statesman" 
says: — 

"If  there  be  in  the  character  not  only  sense  and  soundness, 
but  virtue  of  a  high  order,  then,  however  little  appearance 
there  may  be  of  talent,  a  certain  portion  of  wisdom  may  be 
relied  upon  almost  implicitly.  For  the  correspondencies  of 
wisdom  and  goodness  are  manifold ;  and  that  they  will  accom- 
pany each  other  is  to  be  inferred,  not  only  because  men's 
wisdom  makes  them  good,  but  also  because  their  goodness 
makes  them  wise.  Questions  of  right  and  wrong  are  a  per- 
petual exercise  of  the  faculties  of  those  who  are  solicitous  as 
to  the  right  and  wrong  of  what  they  do  and  see ;  and  a  deep 
interest  of  the  heart  in  these  questions  carries  with  it  a 
deeper  cultivation  of  the  understanding  than  can  be  easily 
effected  by  any  other  excitement  to  intellectual  activity." 
144 


Common   Sense 

by  a  man  of  large  experience  of  human  nature 
and  action,  that  the  habitual  determination  to 
do  the  right  thing,  marvellously  clears  the  judg- 
ment as  to  matters  purely  intellectual  or  pru- 
dential, having  in  themselves  no  moral  bearing. 

Of  this  we  have  a  good  illustration  in  the 
advice  which  an  eminent  and  experienced  judge 
(the  story  is  told  of  Lord  Mansfield)  is  said  to 
have  given  to  a  younger  friend,  newly  appointed 
to  a  colonial  judgeship: — "  Never  give  reasons  for 
your  decisions;  your  judgments  will  very  prob- 
ably be  right,  but  your  reasons  will  almost  cer- 
tainly be  wrong. "  The  meaning  of  this  may  be 
taken  to  be: — "Your  legal  instinct,  or  specially 
trained  common  sense,  based  on  your  general 
knowledge  of  law,  guided  by  your  honesty  of 
intention,  will  very  probably  lead  you  to  correct 
conclusions;  but  your  knowledge  of  the  techni- 
calities of  law  is  not  sufficient  to  enable  you  to 
give  reasons  for  these  conclusions,  which  shall 
bear  the  test  of  hostile  scrutiny." 

But  further,  in  any  of  those  complicated  ques- 
tions that  are  pretty  sure  to  come  before  us  all 
at  some  time  or  other  in  our  lives, — as  to  which 
there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  on  both  sides;  in 
which  it  IS  difficult  to  say  what  is  prudent  and 
even  what  is  right;  in  which  it  is  not  duty  and 
inclination  that  are  at  issue,  but  one  set  of  duties 
and  inclinations  at  issue  with  another, — exper- 
ience justifies  the  conclusion  to  which  science 
seems  to  point,  that  the  habitually  well-regulated 
mind  forms  its  surest  judgment  by  trusting  to 
145 


Alasterpieces   of    Science 

the  automatic  guidance  of  its  common  sense; 
just  as  a  rider  who  has  lost  his  road  is  more  hkely 
to  find  his  way  home  by  dropping  the  reins  on 
his  horse's  neck,  than  by  continuing  to  jerk  them 
to  this  side  or  that  in  tne  vain  search  for  it. 
For  continued  argument  and  discussion,  in 
which  the  feehngs  are  excited  on  one  side,  pro- 
voke antagonistic  feeHngs  on  the  other;  and  no 
true  balance  can  be  struck  until  all  these  ad- 
ventitious infiaences  have  ceased  to  operate. 
When  all  the  considerations  which  ought  to  be 
taken  into  the  account  have  been  once  brought 
fully  before  the  mind,  it  is  far  better  to  leave 
them  to  arrange  themselves,  by  turning  the 
conscious  activity  of  the  mind  into  some  other 
direction,  or  by  giving  it  a  complete  repose. 
If  adequate  time  be  given  for  this  unconscious 
co-ordination,  which  is  especially  necessary  when 
the  feelings  have  been  strongly  and  deeply 
moved,  we  find,  when  we  bring  the  question 
again  under  consideration,  that  the  direction  in 
which  the  mind  gravitates  is  a  safer  guide  than 
any  judgment  formed  when  we  are  fresh  from 
its  discussion. 

Not  only  may  the  range  and  value  of  such 
common  sense  judgments  be  increased  by  ap- 
propriate culture  in  the  individual,  for,  of  all 
parts  of  our  higher  nature,  the  aptitude  for 
forming  them  is  probably  that  which  is  most 
capable  of  being  transmitted  hereditarily;  so 
that  the  descendant  of  a  well-educated  ancestry 
constitutionally  possesses  in  it  much  higher 
146 


Common  Sense 

measure  than  the  progeny  of  any  savage  race. 
And  it  seems  to  be  in  virtue  of  this  automatic 
co-ordination  of  the  elements  of  judgment,  rather 
than  of  any  process  of  conscious  ratiocination, 
that  the  race,  Hke  the  individual,  emancipates 
itself  from  early  prejudices,  gets  rid  of  worn-out 
beliefs,  and  learns  to  look  at  things  as  they  are, 
rather  than  as  they  have  been  traditionally 
represented.  This  is  what  is  really  expressed 
by  the  progress  of  rationalism.  For  although 
that  progress  undoubtedly  depends  in  great  part 
upon  the  more  general  diffusion  of  knowledge 
and  the  higher  culture  of  those  intellectual 
powers  which  are  exercised  in  the  acquirement  of 
it,  yet  this  alone  would  be  of  little  avail,  if  the 
self-discipline  thus  exerted  did  not  act  down- 
wards in  improving  the  mechanism  that  evolves 
the  self-evident  material  of  our  reasoning  pro- 
cesses, as  well  as  upwards  in  more  highly  elaborat- 
ing their  product.  If  we  examine,  for  instance, 
the  history  of  the  decHne  of  the  belief  in  witch- 
craft, we  find  that  it  was  not  killed  by  discussion, 
but  perished  of  neglect.  The  common  sense  of 
the  best  part  of  mankind  has  come  to  be  ashamed 
of  ever  having  put  any  faith  in  things  whose 
absurdity  now  appears  self-evident;  no  discus- 
sion of  evidence  once  regarded  as  convincing  is 
any  longer  needed;  and  it  is  only  among  those 
of  our  hereditarily  uneducated  population, 
whose  general  intelligence  is  ^bout  on  a  par  with 
that  of  a  Hottentot  or  an  Esquimaux,  that  we 
any  longer  find  such  faith  entertained. 
147 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

There  is,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  under-current,  not 
of  actually  formed  opinion,  but  of  tendenc}^  to 
the  formation  of  opinions,  in  certain  directions, 
which  bursts  every  now  and  then  to  the  surface; 
exhibiting  a  latent  preparedness  in  the  public 
mind  to  look  at  great  questions  in  a  new  point  of 
view,  which  leads  to  most  striking  results  when 
adequately  guided.  That  "the  hour  is  come — 
and  the  man"  is  what  history  continually  repro- 
duces; neither  can  do  anything  effectively  with- 
out the  other.  But  a  great  idea  thrown  out  by 
a  mind  in  advance  of  its  age,  takes  root  and 
germinates  in  secret,  shapes  the  imconscious 
thought  of  a  few  individuals  of  the  next  gen- 
eration, is  by  them  diffused  still  more  widely, 
and  thus  silently  matures  itself  in  the  womb  of 
time,  tmtil  it  comes  forth,  like  Minerva,  in  full 
panoply  of  power. 

Those  who  are  able  to  look  back  with  intel- 
ligent retrospect  over  the  political  history  of  the 
last  half-century  and  who  witness  the  now  gen- 
eral pervasion  of  the  public  mind  by  truths  which 
it  accepts  as  self-evident,  and  b)^  moral  principles 
which  it  regards  as  beyond  dispute,  can  scarcely 
realize  to  themselves  the  fact  that  within  their 
own  recollection  the  fearless  assertors  of  those 
truths  and  principles  were  scoffed  at  as  vis- 
ionaries or  reviled  as  destructives.  And  those 
whose  experience  is  limited  to  a  more  recent 
period,  must  see,  in  the  rapid  development  of 
public  opinion  on  subjects  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance, the  evidence  of  a  previous  unconscious 
148 


Common   Sense 

preparedness,  which  may  be  beheved  to  con- 
sist mainly  in  the  higher  development  and  more 
general  diffusion  of  that  automatic  co-ordinating 
power,  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  reason 
as  distinct  from  reasoning. 

Thus,  then,  every  course  of  intellectual  and 
moral  self-discipline,  steadily  and  honestly  pur- 
sued, tends  not  merely  to  clsar  the  mental  vision 
of  the  individual,  but  to  ennoble  the  race;  by 
helping  to  develop  that  intuitive  power,  which 
arises  in  the  first  instance  from  the  embodiment 
in  the  human  constitution  of  the  general  result- 
ants of  antecedent  experience,  but  which,  in  its 
highest  form,  far  transcends  the  experience  that 
has  furnished  the  materials  for  its  evolution, — 
just  as  the  creative  power  of  imagination  shapes 
out  conceptions  which  no  merely  constructive 
skill  could  devise. 


149 


A  LIBERAL  EDUCATION 
Professor  T.  H.   Huxley 

[In  1868  Professor  Huxley  delivered  an  address  to  the  South 
London  Workingmen's  College,  part  of  which  follows.  The 
address  appears  in  full  in  the  third  volume  of  the  author's 
essays,  published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.] 

What  is  education  ?  Above  all  things,  what 
is  our  ideal  of  a  thoroughly  liberal  education  ? — 
of  that  education  which,  if  we  could  begin  life 
again,  we  would  give  ourselves — of  that  educa- 
tion which,  if  we  could  mould  the  fates  to  our 
own  will,  we  would  give  our  children?  Well, 
I  know  not  what  may  be  your  conceptions  upon 
this  matter,  but  I  will  tell  you  mine,  and  I  hope 
I  shall  find  that  our  views  are  not  ver\'  discrepant. 

Suppose  it  were  perfectly  certain  that  the 
life  and  fortune  of  every  one  of  us  would,  one  day 
or  other,  depend  upon  his  losing  or  winning 
a  game  of  chess.  Don't  you  think  that  we  should 
all  consider  it  to  be  a  primary  duty  to  learn  at 
least  the  names  and  moves  of  the  pieces ;  to  have 
a  notion  of  a  gambit,  and  a  keen  e^-e  for  all  the 
means  of  giving  and  getting  out  of  check  ?  Do 
you  not  think  that  we  should  look  with  a  disap- 
probation amounting  to  scorn,  upon  the  father 
who  allowed  his  son,  or  the  State  which  allowed 
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Masterpieces   of   Science 

its  members,  to  grow  up  without  knowing  a  pawn 
from  a  knight.  ? 

Yet  it  is  a  very  plain  and  elementary  truth, 
that  the  life,  the  fortune,  and  the  happiness  of 
every  one  of  us,  and,  more  or  less,  of  those  who 
are  connected  with  us,  do  depend  upon  our  know- 
ing something  of  the  rules  of  a  game  infinitely 
more  difficult  and  complicated  than  chess  ?  It  is 
a  game  which  has  been  played  for  untold  ages, 
every  man  and  woman  of  us  being  one  of  the  two 
players  in  a  game  of  his  or  her  own.  The  chess- 
board is  the  world,  the  pieces  are  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe,  the  rules  of  the  game  are  what  we 
call  the  laws  of  Nature.  The  pla3^cr  on  the  other 
side  is  hidden  from  us.  We  know  that  his  play  is 
always  fair,  just  and  patient.  But  also  we  know, 
to  our  cost,  that  he  never  overlooks  a  mistake,  or 
makes  the  smallest  allowance  for  ignorance.  To 
the  man  who  plays  well,  the  highest  stakes  are 
paid,  with  that  sort  of  overflowing  generosity 
with  which  the  strong  shows  delight  in  strength. 
And  one  who  plays  ill  is  checkmated — without 
haste,  but  without  remorse. 

My  metaphor  will  remind  some  of  you  of  the 
famous  picture  in  which  Retzsch  has  depicted 
Satan  playing  at  chess  with  man  for  his  soul. 
Substitute  for  the  mocking  fiend  in  that  picture 
a  calm,  strong  angel  who  is  playing  for  love,  as 
we  say,  and  would  rather  lose  than  win — and  I 
should  accept  it  as  an  image  of  human  life. 

Well,  what  I  mean  by  Education  is  learning 
the  rules  of  this  mighty  game.     In  other  words, 

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A  Liberal  Education 

education  is  the  instruction  of  the  intellect  in  the 
laws  of  Nature,  under  which  name  I  include  not 
merely  things  and  their  forces,  but  men  and  their 
ways;  and  the  fashioning  of  the  affections  and  of 
the  will  into  an  earnest  and  loving  desire  to  move 
in  harmony  with  those  laws.  For  me,  education 
means  neither  more  nor  less  than  this.  Anything 
which  professes  to  call  itself  education  must  be 
tried  by  this  standard,  and  if  it  fails  to  stand  the 
test,  I  will  not  call  it  education,  whatever  may  be 
the  force  of  authority,  or  of  numbers,  upon  the 
other  side. 

It  is  important  to  remember  that,  in  strictness, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  uneducated  man. 
Take  an  extreme  case.  Suppose  that  an  adult 
man,  in  the  full  vigour  of  his  faculties,  could  be 
suddenly  placed  in  the  world,  as  Adam  is  said  to 
have  been,  and  then  left  to  do  as  he  best  might. 
How  long  would  he  be  left  uneducated  ?  Not  five 
minutes.  Nature  would  begin  to  teach  him, 
through  the  eye.  the  ear,  the  touch,  the  properties 
of  objects.  Pain  and  pleasure  would  be  at  his 
elbow  telling  him  to  do  this  and  avoid  that ;  and 
by  slow  degrees  the  man  would  receive  an  educa- 
tion which,  if  narrow,  would  be  thorough,  real, 
and  adequate  to  his  circumstances,  though  there 
would  be  no  extras  and  ven,*  few  accomplish- 
ments. 

And  if  to  this  solitary  man  entered  a  second 

Adam,  or,  better  still,  an  Eve.  a  new  and  greater 

world,  that  of  social  and  moral  phenomena,  would 

be    revealed.     Joys    and   woes,    compared   with 

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Masterpieces   of   Science 

which  all  others  would  seem  but  faint  shadows, 
would  spring  from  the  new  relations.  Happiness 
and  sorrow  would  take  the  place  of  the  coarser 
monitors,  pleasure  and  pain;  but  conduct  would 
still  be  shaped  by  the  observation  of  the  natural 
consequences  of  actions;  or,  in  other  words,  by  the 
laws  of  the  nature  of  man. 

To  every  one  of  us  the  world  was  once  as  fresh 
and  new  as  to  Adam.  And  then,  long  before  we 
were  susceptible  of  any  other  modes  of  instruc- 
tion, Nature  took  us  in  hand,  and  every  minute  of 
waking  life  brought  its  educational  influence, 
shaping  our  actions  into  rough  accordance  with 
Nature's  laws,  so  that  we  might  not  be  ended 
untimely  by  too  gross  disobedience.  Nor  should 
I  speak  of  this  process  of  education  as  past  for  any 
one,  be  he  as  old  as  he  may.  For  every  man  the 
world  is  as  fresh  as  it  was  at  the  first  day,  and  as 
full  of  untold  novelties  for  him  who  has  the  eyes 
to  see  them.  And  Nature  is  still  continuing  her 
patient  education  of  us  in  that  great  university, 
the  universe,  of  which  we  are  all  members. 

Those  who  take  honours  in  Nature's  university, 
who  learn  the  laws  w^hich  govern  men  and  things 
and  obey  them,  are  the  really  great  and  successful 
men  in  this  world.  The  great  mass  of  mankind 
are  the  "Poll,"  who  pick  up  just  enough  to  get 
through  without  much  discredit.  Those  who 
won't  learn  at  all  are  plucked;  and  then  you  can't 
come  up  again.  Natiirc's  pluck  means  exter- 
mination. 

Thus  the  question  of  compulsory  education  is 
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A  Liberal  Education 

settled  so  far  as  Nature  is  concerned.  Her  bill  on 
that  question  was  framed  and  passed  long  ago. 
But,  like  all  compulsor}^  legislation,  that  of  Nature 
is  harsh  and  wasteful  in  its  operation.  Ignorance 
is  visited  as  sharply  as  wilful  disobedience — inca- 
pacity meets  with  the  same  punishment  as 
crime.  Nature's  discipline  is  not  even  a  word 
and  a  blow,  and  the  blow  first;  but  the  blow 
without  the  word.  It  is  left  to  you  to  find  out 
why  your  ears  are  boxed. 

The  object  of  what  we  commonly  call  educa- 
tion— that  education  in  which  man  inter\-enes 
and  which  I  shall  distinguish  as  artificial  educa- 
tion— is  to  make  good  these  defects  in  Nature's 
methods;  to  prepare  the  child  to  receive  Nature's 
education,  neither  incapably  nor  ignorantly,  nor 
with  wilful  disobedience;  and  to  tmderstand  the 
preliminarv'  symptoms  of  her  pleasure,  without 
waiting  for  the  box  on  the  ear.  In  short,  all 
artificial  education  ought  to  be  an  anticipation 
of  natural  education.  And  a  liberal  education 
is  an  artificial  education  which  has  not  only 
prepared  a  man  to  escape  the  great  evils  of  dis- 
obedience to  natural  laws,  but  has  trained  him 
to  appreciate  and  to  seize  upon  the  rewards, 
which  Nature  scatters  with  as  free  a  hand  as  her 
penalties. 

That  man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  education 
who  has  been  so  trained  in  youth  that  his  body  is 
the  ready  ser\-ant  of  his  will,  and  does  with  ease 
and  pleasure  all  the  work  that,  as  a  mechanism, 
it  is  capable  of;  whose  intellect  is  a  clear,  cold, 
155 


j\Iasterpieces    of   Science 

logic  engine,  with  all  its  parts  of  equal  strength 
and  in  smooth  working  order;  ready,  like  a  steam 
engine,  to  be  ttimed  to  any  kind  of  work  and 
spin  the  gossamers  as  well  as  forge  the  anchors 
of  the  mind ;  whose  mind  is  stored  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  great  and  fundamental  truths  of 
Nature  and  of  the  laws  of  her  operations;  one 
who,  no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of  life  and  fire, 
but  whose  passions  are  trained  to  come  to  heel  by 
a  vigorous  will,  the  servant  of  a  tender  con- 
science; who  has  learned  to  love  all  beauty, 
whether  of  Nature  or  of  art,  to  hate  all  vileness, 
and  to  respect  others  as  himself. 

Such  an  one  and  no  other,  I  conceive,  has  had 
a  liberal  education;  for  he  is,  as  completely  as  a 
man  can  be,  in  harmony  with  Nature.  He  will 
make  the  best  of  her,  and  she  of  him.  They  will 
get  on  together  rarely;  she  as  his  ever  beneficent 
mother;  he  as  her  motithpiece,  her  conscious 
self,  her  minister  and  interpreter. 

[Then  follows  an  account  of  English  primary 
schools  in  1868,  setting  forth  defects  many  of 
which  have  since  been  removed.] 

Least  of  all,  does  the  child  gather  from  this 
primary  "education"  of  ours  a  conception  of  the 
laws  of  the  physical  world,  or  of  the  relations  of 
cause  and  effect  therein.  And  this  is  the  more  to 
be  lamented,  as  the  poor  are  especially  exposed 
to  physical  evils,  and  are  more  interested  in  re- 
moving them  than  any  other  class  of  the  com- 
munity. If  any  one  is  concerned  in  knowing 
the  ordinary  laws  of  mechanics  one  would  think 
156 


A   Liberal   Education 

it  is  the  hand-labourer,  whose  daily  toil  lies 
among  levers  and  pulleys;  or  among  the  other 
implements  of  artisan  work.  And  if  any  one  is 
interested  in  the  laws  of  health,  it  is  the  poor 
workman,  whose  strength  is  wasted  by  ill-pre- 
pared food,  whose  strength  is  sapped  by  bad 
ventilation  and  bad  drainage,  and  half  whose 
children  are  massacred  by  disorders  which  might 
be  prevented.  Not  only  does  our  present  pri- 
mary education  carefully  abstain  from  hinting 
to  the  workman  that  that  some  of  his  greatest 
evils  are  traceable  to  mere  physical  agencies, 
which  could  be  removed  by  energy- ,  patience, 
and  frugality;  but  it  does  worse — it  renders  him. 
so  far  as  it  can,  deaf  to  those  who  could  help  him, 
and  tries  to  substitute  an  Oriental  submission 
to  what  is  falsely  declared  to  be  the  will  of  God. 
for  his  natural  tendency  to  strive  after  a  better 
condition. 

What  wonder,  then,  if  ver\-  recently  an  appeal 
has  been  made  to  statistics  for  the  profoundly 
foolish  purpose  of  showing  that  education  is  of  no 
good — that  it  diminishes  neither  misery  nor 
crime  among  the  masses  of  mankind?  I  reply, 
why  should  the  thing  which  is  called  education 
do  either  the  one  or  the  other  ?  If  I  am  a  knave 
or  a  fool,  teaching  me  to  read  or  write  won't 
make  me  less  of  either  one  or  the  other — unless 
somebody  shows  me  how  to  put  my  reading  and 
writing  to  wise  and  good  purposes. 

Suppose  any  one  were  to  argue  that  medicine 
is  of  no  use,  because  it  could  be  proven  statistic- 
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Masterpieces    of   Science 

ally,  that  the  percentage  of  deaths  was  just  the 
same  among  people  who  had  been  taught  how 
to  open  a  medicine  chest,  and  among  those  who 
did  not  so  much  as  know  the  key  by  sight.  The 
argument  is  absurd;  but  it  is  not  more  preposter- 
ous than  that  against  which  I  am  contending. 
The  only  medicine  for  sufifering,  crime,  and  all 
the  other  woes  of  mankind,  is  wisdom.  Teach 
a  man  to  read  and  write,  and  you  have  put  into 
his  hands  the  great  keys  of  the  wisdom  box.  But 
it  is  quite  another  matter  whether  he  ever  opens 
the  box  or  not.  And  he  is  as  likely  to  poison  as 
to  cure  himself,  if,  without  guidance,  he  swallows 
the  first  drug  that  comes  to  hand.  In  these  times 
a  man  may  as  well  be  purblind,  as  unable  to  read 
— lame,  as  unable  to  write.  But  I  protest  that, 
if  I  thought  the  alternative  were  a  necessary  one, 
I  would  rather  that  the  children  of  the  poor 
should  grow  up  ignorant  of  both  these  might}^  arts 
than  that  they  should  remain  ignorant  of  that 
knowledge  to  which  these  arts  are  means. 

It  may  be  said  that  all  these  animadversions 
may  apply  to  primary  schools,  but  that  the 
higher  schools,  at  any  rate,  must  be  allowed  to 
give  a  liberal  education.  In  fact  they  pro- 
fessedly sacrifice  everything  else  to  this  object. 

Let  us  inquire  into  this  matter  What  do  the 
higher  schools,  those  to  which  the  great  middle 
class  of  the  country  sends  its  children,  teach, 
over  and  above  the  instruction  given  in  the 
primary  schools?  There  is  a  little  more  reading 
and  writing  of  English.  But,  for  all  that,  cverj^ 
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A   Liberal   Education 

one  knows  that  it  is  a  rare  thing  to  find  a  boy  of 
the  middle  or  upper  classes  who  can  read  aloud 
decently,  or  who  can  put  his  thoughts  on  paper 
in  clear  and  grammatical  (to  say  nothing  of  good 
or  elegant)  language.  The  "ciphering"  of  the 
lower  schools  expands  into  elementary  mathe- 
matics in  the  higher;  into  arithmetic,  with  a  little 
algebra,  a  little  Euclid.  But  I  doubt  if  one  boy 
in  five  hundred  has  ever  heard  the  explanation 
of  a  rule  of  arithmetic,  or  knows  his  Euclid  other- 
wise than  by  rote. 

Of  theology,  the  middle-class  schoolboy  gets 
rather  less  than  poorer  children,  less  absolutely 
and  less  relatively,  because  there  are  so  many 
other  claims  upon  his  attention.  I  venture  to 
say  that,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  his  ideas 
on  this  subject  when  he  leaves  school  are  of  the 
most  shadowy  and  vague  description,  and  asso- 
ciated with  painful  impressions  of  the  weary 
hours  spent  in  learning  collects  and  catechism  by 
heart. 

Modem  geography,  modem  history,  modern 
literature;  the  English  language  as  a  language; 
the  whole  circle  of  the  sciences,  physical,  moral, 
and  social,  are  even  more  completely  ignored 
in  the  higher  than  in  the  lower  schools.  Up  till 
within  a  few  years  back  a  boy  might  have  passed 
through  any  one  of  the  great  public  schools  with 
the  greatest  distinction  and  credit,  and  might 
never  so  much  as  have  heard  of  the  subjects  I 
have  just  mentioned.  He  might  never  have 
heard  that  the  earth  goes  round  the  sun;  that 
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Masterpieces   of   Science 

England  underwent  a  great  revolution  in  i6S8, 
and  France  another  in  1 789 ;  that  there  once  lived 
certain  notable  men  called  Chaucer,  Shakes- 
peare, Milton,  Voltaire,  Goethe,  Schiller.  The 
first  might  be  a  German  and  the  last  an  English- 
man for  anything  he  could  tell  you  to  the  con- 
trary. And  as  for  science,  the  only  idea  the 
word  would  suggest  to  his  mind  would  be  dex- 
terity in  boxing. 

I  have  said  that  this  was  the  state  of  things  a 
few  years  back,  for  the  sake  of  the  few  righteous 
who  are  to  be  found  among  the  educational  cities 
of  the  plain.  But  I  would  not  have  you  too  san- 
guine about  the  result,  if  you  sound  the  minds  of 
the  existing  generation  of  public  schoolboys,  on 
such  topics  as  those  I  have  mentioned. 

Now  let  us  pause  to  consider  this  wonderful 
state  of  affairs;  for  the  time  will  come  when  Eng- 
lishmen will  quote  it  as  the  stock  example  of  the 
stolid  stupidity  of  their  ancestors  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  most  thoroughly  commer- 
cial people,  the  greatest  voluntary  wanderers 
and  colonists  the  world  has  ever  seen,  are  pre- 
cisely the  middle  class  of  this  country.  If 
there  be  a  people  which  has  been  busy  making 
history  on  the  great  scale  for  the  last  three  hun- 
dred years — and  the  most  profoundly  interesting 
history — history  which,  if  it  happened  to  be 
that  of  Greece  or  Rome,  we  should  study 
with  avidity — it  is  the  English.  If  there  be  a 
people  which,  during  the  same  period,  has 
developed  a  remarkable  literature,  it  is  our  own. 
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A   Liberal   Education 

If  there  be  a  nation  whose  prosperity  depends 
absolutely  and  wholly  upon  their  mastery  over 
the  forces  of  Nature,  upon  their  intelligent 
apprehension  of  and  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the 
creation  and  distribution  of  wealth,  and  of  the 
stable  equilibrium  of  the  forces  of  society,  it  is 
precisely  this  nation.  And  yet  this  is  what 
these  wonderful  people  tell  their  sons: — "At 
the  cost  of  from  one  to  two  thousand  pounds  of 
our  hard-earned  money,  we  devote  twelve  of  the 
most  precious  years  of  your  lives  to  school. 
There  you  shall  toil,  or  be  supposed  to  toil;  but 
there  you  shall  not  learn  one  single  thing  of  all 
those  you  will  most  want  to  know  directly  you 
leave  school  and  enter  upon  the  practical  business 
of  life.  You  will  in  all  probability  go  into  busi- 
ness, but  you  shall  not  know  where,  or  how,  any 
article  of  commerce  is  produced,  or  the  difference 
between  an  export  or  an  import,  or  the  meaning 
of  the  word  'capital.'  You  will  very  likely 
settle  in  a  colony,  but  you  shall  not  know  whether 
Tasmania  is  part  of  New  South  Wales  or  vice  versa. 
"Very  probably  you  may  become  a  manufac- 
turer, but  you  shall  not  be  provided  with  the 
means  of  understanding  the  working  of  one  of 
your  own  steam  engines,  or  of  the  nature  of  the 
raw  products  you  employ;  and.  when  you  are 
asked  to  buy  a  patent,  you  shall  not  have  the 
slightest  means  of  judging  w^hether  the  inventor 
is  an  impostor  who  is  contravening  the  elemen- 
tary principles  of  science,  or  a  man  who  will 
make  you  as  rich  as  Cr-xsus. 
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Masterpieces   of   Science 

"You  will  very  likely  get  into  the  House  of 
Commons.  You  will  have  to  take  your  share  in 
making  laws  which  may  prove  a  blessing  or  a 
curse  to  millions  of  men.  But  you  shall  not  hear 
one  word  respecting  the  political  organization  of 
your  country;  the  meaning  of  the  controversy  be- 
tween free-traders  and  protectionists  shall  never 
have  been  mentioned  to  you;  you  shall  not  so 
much  as  know  that  there  are  any  such  things  as 
economical  laws. 

"The  mental  power  which  will  be  of  most  im- 
portance in  your  daily  life  will  be  the  power  of 
seeing  things  as  they  are  without  regard  to 
authority;  and  of  drawing  accurate  general  con- 
clusions from  particular  facts.  But  at  school 
and  at  college  you  shall  know  of  no  source  of 
truth  but  authority;  nor  exercise  yotir  reasoning 
faculty  upon  anything  but  deduction  from  what 
is  laid  down  by  authority. 

"You  will  have  to  weary  your  soul  with  work, 
and  many  a  time  eat  your  bread  in  sorrow  and 
in  bitterness,  and  you  shall  not  have  learned  to 
take  refuge  in  the  great  source  of  pleasure  with- 
out alloy,  the  serene  resting-place  for  worn  human 
nature, — the  world  of  art." 

Said  I  not  rightly  that  we  are  a  wonderful 
people  ?  I  am  quite  prepared  to  allow  that 
education  entirely  devoted  to  these  omitted 
subjects  might  not  be  a  completely  liberal  educa- 
tion. But  is  an  education  which  ignores  them 
all  a  liberal  education  ?  Nay,  is  it  too  much  to 
say  that  the  education  which  should  embrace 
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A   Liberal   Education 

these  subjects  and  no  others  would  be  a  real 
education,  though  an  incomplete  one;  while  an 
education  which  omits  them  is  really  not  an 
education  at  all,  but  a  more  or  less  useful  course  of 
intellectual  g]»'mnastics  ? 

For  what  does  the  middle-class  school  put  in 
the  place  of  all  these  things  which  are  left  out  ? 
It  substitutes  what  is  usually  comprised  under 
the  compendious  title  of  the  ''classics" — that  is 
to  say,  the  languages,  the  literature  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  the 
geography  of  so  much  of  the  world  as  was  known 
to  these  two  great  nations  of  antiquity.  Now,  do 
not  expect  me  to  depreciate  the  earnest  and  en- 
lightened pursuit  of  classical  learning.  I  have 
not  the  least  desire  to  speak  ill  of  such  occupa- 
tions, nor  any  sympathy  with  them  who  run 
them  down.  On  the  contrary,  if  my  opportuni- 
ties had  lain  in  that  direction,  there  is  no  inves- 
tigation into  which  I  could  have  thrown  myself 
with  greater  delight  than  that  of  antiquity. 

What  science  can  present  greater  attractions 
than  philology-  ?  How  can  a  lover  of  literary 
excellence  fail  to  rejoice  in  the  ancient  master- 
pieces ?  And  with  what  consistency  could  I, 
w^hose  business  lies  so  much  in  the  attempt  to 
decipher  the  past  and  to  build  up  intelligible 
forms  out  of  the  scattered  fragments  of  long- 
extinct  beings,  fail  to  take  a  sympathetic,  though 
an  unlearned,  interest  in  the  labours  of  a  Niebuhr, 
a  Gibbon,  or  a  Grote  ?  Classical  histor\-  is  a  great 
section  of  the  palaeontology-  of  man;  and  I  have 
163 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

the  same  double  respect  for  it  as  for  other  kinds 
of  palaeontology — that  is  to  say,  a  respect  for  the 
facts  which  it  establishes  as  for  all  facts,  and  a  still 
greater  respect  for  it  as  a  preparation  for  the 
discovery  of  a  law  of  progress. 

But  if  the  classics  were  taught  as  they  might 
be  taught — if  boys  and  girls  were  instructed  in 
Greek  and  Latin,  not  merely  as  languages,  but  as 
illustrations  of  philological  science;  if  a  vivid  pic- 
ture of  life  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
two  thousand  years  ago  were  imprinted  on  the 
minds  of  scholars;  if  ancient  history  were  taught, 
not  as  a  weary  series  of  feuds  and  fights,  but 
traced  to  its  causes  in  such  men  placed  under  such 
conditions;  if,  lastly,  the  study  of  classical  books 
were  followed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  impress 
boys  with  their  beauties  and  with  the  grand 
simplicit}^  of  their  statement  of  the  everlasting 
problems  of  human  life,  instead  of  with  their 
verbal  and  grammatical  peculiarities;  I  still 
think  it  as  little  proper  that  they  should  form  the 
basis  of  a  liberal  education  for  our  contempor- 
aries, as  I  should  think  it  fitting  to  make  that 
sort  of  palaeontology  with  which  I  am  familiar 
the  back-bone  of  modem  education. 

It  is  wonderful  how  close  a  parallel  to  classical 
training  could  be  made  out  of  that  palaeontology 
to  which  r  refer.  In  the  first  place  I  could  get 
up  an  osteological  primer  so  arid,  so  pedantic  in 
its  terminologv',  so  altogether  distasteful  to  the 
youthful  mind,  as  to  beat  the  recent  famous  pro- 
duction of  the  head-masters  out  of  the  field  in  all 
164 


A   Liberal   Education 

these  excellences.  Next,  I  could  exercise  my 
boys  upon  easy  fossils  and  bring  out  all  their 
powers  of  memory  and  all  their  ingenuity  in  the 
application  of  my  osteo-grammatical  rules  to  the 
interpretation,  or  construing,  of  those  fragments. 
To  those  who  had  reached  the  higher  classes,  I 
might  supply  odd  bones  to  be  built  up  into 
animals,  giving  great  honour  and  reward  to  him 
who  succeeded  in  fabricating  monsters  most 
entirely  in  accordance  with  the  rules.  That 
would  answer  to  verse-making  and  essay-writing 
in  the  dead  languages. 

To  be  sure,  if  a  great  comparative  anatomist 
were  to  look  at  these  fabrications  he  might  shake 
his  head  or  laugh.  But  what  then  ?  Would  such 
a  catastrophe  destroy  the  parallel  ?  What,  think 
you,  would  Cicero  or  Horace  say  to  the  produc- 
tion of  the  best  sixth  form  going?  And  would 
not  Terence  stop  his  ears  and  run  out  if  he  could 
be  present  at  an  English  performance  of  his  own 
plays  ?  Would  Hamlet,  in  the  mouths  of  a  set  of 
French  actors,  who  should  insist  on  pronouncing 
English  after  the  fashion  of  their  own  tongue,  be 
more  hideously  ridiculous  ? 

But  it  will  be  said  that  I  am  forgetting  the 
beauty  and  the  human  interest  which  appertain 
to  classical  studies.  To  this  I  reply  that  it  is  only 
a  very  strong  man  who  can  appreciate  the  charms 
of  a  landscape  as  he  is  toiling  up  a  steep  hill,  along 
a  bad  road.  What  with  short-windedness,  stones, 
ruts  and  a  pen.-ading  sense  of  the  wisdom  of  rest 
and  be  thankful,  most  of  us  have  little  enough 
165 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

sense  of  the  beatitiful  tinder  these  circumstances. 
The  ordinary  schoolboy  is  precisely  in  this  case. 
He  finds  Parnassus  uncommonly  steep,  and 
there  is  no  chance  of  his  having  much  time  or 
inclination  to  look  about  him  till  he  gets  to  the 
top.  And  nine  times  out  of  ten  he  does  not  get 
to  the  top. 

But  if  this  be  a  fair  picture  of  the  results  of 
classical  teaching  at  its  best — and  I  gather  from 
those  who  have  authority  to  speak  on  such  mat- 
ters that  it  is  so — what  is  to  be  said  of  classical 
teaching  at  its  worst,  or  in  other  words,  of  the 
classics  of  our  ordinary  middle-class  schools  ?  I 
will  tell  you.  It  means  getting  up  endless  forms 
and  rules  by  heart.  It  means  turning  Latin  and 
Greek  into  English,  for  the  mere  sake  of  being 
able  to  do  it,  and  without  the  smallest  regard  to 
the  worth,  or  worthlessness  of  the  author  read. 
It  means  the  learning  of  innumerable,  not  always 
decent,  fables  in  such  a  shape  that  the  meaning 
they  once  had  is  dried  up  into  utter  trash ;  and  the 
only  impression  left  upon  a  boy's  mind  is,  that 
the  people  who  believed  such  things  must  have 
been  the  greatest  idiots  the  world  ever  saw.  And 
it  means,  finally,  that  after  a  dozen  years  spent 
at  this  kind  of  work,  the  sufferer  shall  be  incom- 
petent to  interpret  a  passage  in  an  author  he  has 
not  already  got  up ;  that  he  shall  loathe  the  sight 
of  a  Greek  or  Latin  book;  and  that  he  shall  never 
open,  or  think  of,  a  classical  writer  again,  until, 
wonderful  to  relate,  he  insists  upon  submitting 
his  sons  to  the  same  process. 
166 


A   Liberal  Education 

Ask  the  man  who  is  investigating  any  ques- 
tion profoundly  and  thoroughly — be  it  historical, 
philosophical,  philological,  physical,  literar\%  or 
theological;  who  is  trying  to  make  himself  master 
of  any  abstract  subject  (except,  perhaps,  political 
economy  and  geolog}',  both  of  which  are  in- 
tensely Anglican  sciences) ,  whether  he  is  not  com- 
pelled to  read  half  a  dozen  times  as  many  Ger- 
man as  English  books?  And  whether,  of  these 
English  books,  more  than  one  in  ten  is  the  work 
of  a  fellow  of  a  college,  or  a  professor  of  an  Eng- 
lish university  ? 

Is  this  from  any  lack  of  power  in  the  English 
as  compared  with  the  German  mind  ?  The 
countrymen  of  Grote  and  of  Mill,  of  Faraday,  of 
Robert  Brown,  of  Lyell  and  of  Darwin,  to  go  no 
further  back  than  the  contemporaries  of  men  of 
middle  age,  can  afford  to  smile  at  such  a  sugges- 
tion. England  can  show  now,  as  she  has  been 
able  to  show  in  every  generation  since  civilization 
spread  over  the  West,  individual  men  who  hold 
their  own  against  the  world,  and  keep  alive  the 
old  tradition  of  her  intellectual  eminence. 

But,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  these  men  are 
what  they  are  in  virtue  of  their  native  intellectual 
force  and  of  a  strength  of  character  which  will 
not  recognize  impediments.  They  are  not 
trained  in  the  courts  of  the  Temple  of  Science, 
but  storm  the  walls  of  that  edifice  in  all  sorts  of 
irregular  ways,  and  with  much  loss  of  time  and 
power,  in  order  to  obtain  their  legitimate  posi- 
tions. 

167 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

Our  universities  not  only  do  not  encourage 
such  men;  do  not  offer  them  positions  in  which 
it  should  be  their  highest  duty  to  do,  thoroughly, 
that  which  they  are  most  capable  of  doing;  but, 
as  far  as  possible,  university  training  shuts  out  of 
the  minds  of  those  among  them,  who  are  sub- 
jected to  it,  the  prospect  that  there  is  anything 
in  the  world  for  which  they  are  specially  fitted. 
Imagine  the  success  of  the  attempt  to  still  the 
intellectual  hunger  of  any  of  the  men  I  have 
mentioned,  by  putting  before  him,  as  the  object 
of  existence,  the  successful  mimicry  of  the  meas- 
ure of  a  Greek  song,  or  the  roll  of  Ciceronian 
prose  !  Imagine  how  much  success  w^ould  be 
likely  to  attend  the  attempt  to  persuade  such 
men  that  the  education  which  leads  to  perfection 
in  such  elegances  is  alone  to  be  called  culture ; 
while  the  facts  of  history,  the  process  of  thought, 
the  conditions  of  moral  and  social  existence  and 
the  laws  of  physical  nature  are  left  to  be  dealt 
with  as  they  ma}^  by  outside  barbarians  ! 

It  is  not  thus  that  the  German  universities, 
from  being  beneath  notice  a  century  ago,  have 
become  what  they  are  now — the  most  intenseh' 
cultivated  and  the  most  productive  intellectual 
corporations  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

The  student  who  repairs  to  them  sees  in  the 
list  of  classes  and  of  professors  a  fair  picture  of 
the  world  of  knowledge.  Whatever  he  needs  to 
know  there  is  some  one  ready  to  teach  him,  some 
one  competent  to  discipline  him  in  the  way  of 
learning;  whatever  his  special  bent,  let  him  but 
168 


A   Liberal  Education 

be  able  and  diligent,  and  in  due  time  he  shall  find 
distinction  and  a  career.  Among  his  professors 
he  sees  men  whose  names  are  known  and  revered 
throughout  the  civilized  world;  and  their  living 
example  infects  him  with  a  noble  ambition  and 
a  love  for  the  spirit  of  work. 

The  Germans  dominate  the  intellectual  world 
by  virtue  of  the  same  simple  secret  as  that  which 
made  Napoleon  the  master  of  old  Europe.  They 
have  declared  that  careers  shall  be  open  to  talents 
and  every  Bursch  marches  with  a  professor's 
gown  in  his  knapsack.  Let  him  become  a  great 
scholar,  or  a  man  of  science,  and  ministers  will 
compete  for  his  services.  In  Germany,  they  do 
not  leave  the  chance  of  his  holding  tne  office  he 
would  render  illustrious  to  the  mercies  of  a  hot 
canvass  and  the  final  wisdom  of  a  mob  of  country 
parsons. 

Moral  and  social  science — one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  fruitful  of  our  future  classes,  I  hope — 
at  present  lacks  only  one  thing  in  our  programme, 
and  that  is  a  teacher.  A  considerable  want,  no 
doubt;  but  it  must  be  recollected  that  it  is  much 
better  to  want  a  teacher  than  to  want  the  desire  to 
learn. 

Further,  we  need  what,  for  want  of  a  better 
name.  I  must  call  Physical  Geography.  What  I 
mean  is  that  which  the  Germans  call  "  Erdkiindc.  " 
It  is  a  description  of  the  earth,  of  its  place  and 
relation  to  other  bodies;  of  its  general  structure 
and  of  its  great  features — winds,  tides,  moun- 
169 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

tains,  plains:  of  the  chief  forms  of  the  vegetable 
and  animal  worlds,  of  the  varieties  of  man.  It  is 
the  peg  upon  which  the  greatest  quantity  of  use- 
ful and  entertaining  scientific  information  can  be 
suspended.* 

Literature  is  not  upon  the  college  programme ; 
but  I  hope  some  day  to  see  it  there.  For  litera- 
ture is  the  greatest  of  all  sources  of  refined  pleas- 
ure, and  one  of  the  great  uses  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion is  to  enable  us  to  enjoy  that  pleasure.  There 
is  scope  enough  for  the  purposes  of  liberal  educa- 
tion in  the  study  of  the  rich  treasures  of  our  own 
language  alone.  All  that  is  needed  is  direction, 
and  the  cultivation  of  a  refined  taste  by  attention 
to  sound  criticism.  But  there  is  no  reason  why 
French  and  German  should  not  be  mastered 
sufficiently  to  read  what  is  worth  reading  in  those 
languages  with  pleasure  and  with  profit. 

And  finally,  by  and  by,  we  must  have  history; 
treated  not  as  a  sucession  of  battles  and  dynasties ; 
not  as  a  series  of  biographies;  not  as  evidence  that 
Providence  has  always  been  on  the  side  of  either 
Whigs  or  Tories,  but  as  the  development  of  man 
in  times  past  and  in  other  conditions  than  our 
own. 

*Professor  Huxley's  "  Physiography,"  published  by  D. 
Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  is  an  excellent  text-book  for  the 
study  he  here  recommends.  It  has  been  drawn  upon  for 
two  chapters  of  the  first  volume  of  "  Masterpieces  of 
Science."  Equally  to  be  recommended  are  "  Physical 
Geography "  and  "  Elementary  Physical  Geography,"  by 
Prof.  W,  M.  Davis,  of  Harvard  University,  published  by 
Ginn  &  Co.,  Boston. 

170 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE 
Professor  T.   H.   Huxley 

[Sir  Josiah  Mason's  Science  College.  Birmingham,  was 
opened  in  i8So  with  an  address  by  Professor  Huxley  which 
appears  in  full  in  the  third  volume  of  his  essays  published 
by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.  As  here  given  passages 
of  local  and  temporary  interest  have  been  omitted.] 

From  the  time  that  the  first  suggestion  to  intro- 
duce physical  science  into  ordinary  education 
was  timidly  whispered,  until  now,  the  advocates 
of  scientific  education  have  met  with  opposition 
of  two  kinds.  On  the  one  hand,  they  have  been 
pooh-poohed  by  the  men  of  business  who  pride 
themselves  on  being  the  representatives  of  prac- 
ticahty;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  they  have 
been  excommunicated  by  the  classical  scholars 
in  their  capacity  of  Levites  in  charge  of  the  ark 
of  culture  and  monopolists  of  liberal  education. 

The  practical  men  believed  that  the  idol  whom 
they  worship — rule  of  thumb — has  been  the 
source  of  the  past  prosperity  and  will  suffice  for 
the  future  welfare  of  the  arts  and  manufactures. 
They  were  of  opinion  that  science  is  specu- 
lative rubbish;  that  theory  and  practice  have 
nothing  to  do  with  one  another;  and  that  the 
scientific  habit  of  mind  is  an  impediment,  rather 
than  an  aid,  in  the  conduct  of  ordinary  affairs. 
171 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

I  have  used  the  past  tense  in  speaking  of  the 
practical  men — for  although  they  were  very 
formidable  thirty  years  ago,  I  am  not  sure  that 
the  pure  species  has  not  been  extirpated.  In 
fact,  so  far  as  mere  argument  goes,  they  have 
been  subjected  to  such  afire  from  the  netherworld 
that  it  is  a  miracle  if  any  have  escaped.  But 
I  have  remarked  that  your  typical  practical 
man  has  an  unexpected  resemblance  to  one  of 
Milton's  angels.  His  spiritual  wounds,  such  as 
are  inflicted  by  logical  weapons,  may  be  as  deep 
as  a  well  and  as  wide  as  a  church-door,  but  be- 
yond shedding  a  few  drops  of  ichor,  celestial  or 
otherwise,  he  is  no  whit  the  worse. 

How  often  have  we  not  been  told  that  the 
study  of  physical  science  is  incompetent  to  con- 
fer culture;  that  it  touches  none  of  the  higher 
problems  of  life;  and,  what  is  worse,  that  the 
continual  devotion  to  scientific  studies  tends 
to  generate  a  narrow  and  bigoted  belief  in  the 
applicability  of  scientific  methods  to  the  search 
after  truth  of  all  kinds?  How  frequently  one 
has  reason  to  observe  that  no  reply  to  a  trouble- 
some argument  tells  so  well  as  calling  its  author  a 
"mere  scientific  specialist.  "  And,  as  I  am  afraid 
it  is  not  permissible  to  speak  of  this  form  of 
opposition  to  scientific  education  in  the  past 
tense;  may  we  not  expect  to  be  told  that  this, 
not  only  omission,  but  prohibition,  of  "mere 
literary  instruction  and  education"  is  a  patent 
example  of  scientific  narrow-mindedness  ? 
172 


Science   and   Culture 

I  am  not  acquainted  with  Sir  Josiah  Mason's 
reasons  for  declaring  that  the  college  shall  make 
no  provision  for  "mere  literary  instruction  and 
education,"  but  if,  as  I  apprehend  the  case,  he 
refers  to  the  ordinary  classical  course  of  our 
schools  and  universities  by  the  name  of  "mere 
literary  instruction  and  education , "  I  venture  to 
offer  sundry-  reasons  of  my  own  in  support  of  that 
action. 

For  I  hold  very  strongly  by  two  convictions. 
The  first  is,  that  neither  the  discipline  nor  the 
subject-matter  of  classical  education  is  of  such 
direct  value  to  the  student  of  physical  science  as 
to  justify  the  expenditure  of  valuable  time  upon 
either;  and  the  second  is,  that  for  the  purpose  of 
attaining  real  culture,  an  exclusively  scientific 
education  is  at  least  as  effectual  as  an  exclusively 
literary  education. 

I  need  hardly  point  out  to  you  that  these 
opinions,  especially  the  latter,  are  diametrically 
opposed  to  those  of  the  great  majority  of  educated 
Englishmen,  influenced  as  they  are  by  school  and 
university  traditions.  In  their  belief,  culture  is 
obtainable  only  by  a  liberal  education;  and  a 
liberal  education  is  synonymous,  not  merely 
with  education  and  instruction  in  literatiire.  but 
in  one  particular  form  of  literature,  namely,  that 
of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity.  They  hold 
that  the  man  who  has  learned  Latin  and  Greek, 
however  little,  is  educated;  while  he  who  is  versed 
in  other  branches  of  knowledge,  however  deeply, 
is  a  more  or  less  respectable  specialist,  not  ad- 
173 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

missible  into  the  cultured  caste.  The  stamp  of 
the  educated  man,  the  university  degree,  is  not 
for  him. 

I  am  too  well  acquainted  with  the  generous 
catholicity  of  spirit,  the  true  sympathy  with 
scientific  thought,  which  pervades  the  writings 
of  our  chief  apostle  of  culture  to  identify  him 
with  these  opinions;  and  yet  one  may  cull  from 
one  and  another  of  those  epistles  to  the  Philis- 
tines, which  so  much  delight  all  who  do  not 
answer  to  that  name,  sentences  which  lend  them 
some   support. 

Mr.  Arnold  tells  us  that  the  meaning  of  culture 
is  "to  know  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
said  in  the  world."  It  is  the  criticism  of  life 
contained  in  literature.  That  criticism  regards 
"Europe  as  being,  for  intellectual  and  spiritual 
purposes,  one  great  confederation,  bound  to  a 
joint  action  and  working  to  a  common  result; 
and  whose  members  have,  for  their  common 
outfit,  a  knowledge  of  Greek,  Roman,  and  East- 
em  antiquity,  and  of  one  another.  Special, 
local,  and  temporary  advantages  being  put  out 
of  account,  that  modem  nation  will  in  the  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  sphere  make  most  progress, 
which  most  thoroughly  carries  out  this  program. 
And  what  is  that  but  sa^nng  that  we  too,  all  of  us, 
as  individuals,  the  more  thoroughly  we  carry  it 
out,  shall  make  the  more  progress?"* 

We  have  here  to  deal  with  two  distinct  propo- 
sitions.    The  first,  that  a  criticism  of  life  is  the 
*  "Essays  in   Criticism,"    p.    37. 
174 


Science  and  Culture 

essence  of  culture;  the  second,  that  literature 
contains  the  materials  which  suffice  for  the  con- 
struction of  such  criticism. 

I  think  that  we  must  all  assent  to  the  first 
proposition.  For  culture  certainly  means  some- 
thing quite  different  from  learning  or  technical 
skill.  It  implies  the  possession  of  an  ideal,  and 
the  habit  of  critically  estimating  the  value  of 
things  by  comparison  with  a  theoretic  standard. 
Perfect  culture  should  supply  a  complete  theor>' 
of  life,  based  upon  a  clear  kno%vledge  alike  of  its 
possibilities  and  of  its  limitations. 

But  we  may  agree  to  all  this,  and  yet  strongly 
dissent  from  the  assumption  that  literature  alone 
is  competent  to  supply  this  knowledge.  After 
having  learnt  all  that  Greek,  Roman,  and  East- 
em  antiquity  have  thought  and  said,  and  all  that 
modem  literature  have  to  tell  us,  it  is  not  self- 
evident  that  we  have  laid  a  sufficiently  broad 
and  deep  foundation  for  that  criticism  of  life, 
which  constitutes  culture. 

Indeed,  to  anyone  acquainted  with  the  scope 
of  physical  science,  it  is  not  at  all  evident.  Con- 
sidering progress  only  in  the  "intellectual  and 
spiritual  sphere, "  I  find  myself  wholly  unable  to 
admit  that  either  nations  or  individuals  will  really 
advance  if  their  common  outfit  draws  nothing 
from  the  stores  of  physical  science.  I  should  say 
that  an  army,  without  weapons  of  precision  and 
with  no  particular  base  of  operations,  might  more 
hopefully  enter  upon  a  campaign  on  the  Rhine 
than  a  man,  devoid  of  a  knowledge  of  what  physi- 
175 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

cal  science  has  done  in  the  last  century,  upon  a 
criticism  of  life. 

The  representatives  of  the  Humanists,  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  take  their  stand  upon  classi- 
cal education  as  the  sole  avenue  to  culture,  as 
firmly  as  if  we  were  still  in  the  age  of  Renascence. 
Yet,  surely,  the  present  intellectual  relations  of 
the  modem  and  the  ancient  worlds  are  pro- 
foundly different  from  those  which  obtained 
three  centuries  ago.  Leaving  aside  the  exist- 
ence of  a  great  and  characteristically  modern 
literature,  of  modem  painting,  and,  especially, 
of  modem  music,  there  is  one  feature  of  the 
present  state  of  the  civilized  world  which  sepa- 
rates it  more  widely  from  the  Renascence,  than 
the  Renascence  was  separated  from  the  middle 
ages. 

This  distinctive  character  of  our  own  times  lies 
in  the  vast  and  constantly  increasing  part  which 
is  played  by  natural  knowledge.  Not  only  is 
our  daily  life  shaped  by  it,  not  only  does  the 
prosperity  of  millions  of  men  depend  upon  it,  but 
our  whole  theory  of  life  has  long  been  influenced, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  by  the  general 
conceptions  of  the  universe,  which  have  been 
forced  upon  us  by  physical  science. 

In  fact,  the  most  elementary  acquaintance  with 
the  results  of  scientific  investigation  shows  us 
that  they  offer  a  broad  and  striking  contradiction 
to  the  opinion  so  implicitly  credited  and  taught 
in  the  middle  ages. 

176 


Science   and   Culture 

The  notions  of  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
the  world  entertained  by  our  forefathers  are  no 
longer  credible.  It  is  very  certain  that  the  earth 
is  not  the  chief  body  in  the  material  universe, 
and  that  the  world  is  not  subordinated  to  man's 
use.  It  is  even  more  certain  that  nature  is  the 
expression  of  a  definite  order  with  which  nothing 
interferes,  and  that  the  chief  business  of  mankind 
is  to  learn  that  order  and  govern  themselves  ac- 
cordingly. Moreover  this  scientific  "criticism  of 
life"  presents  itself  to  us  with  different  creden- 
tials from  any  other.  It  appeals  not  to  author- 
ity, nor  to  what  anybody  may  have  thought  or 
said,  but  to  nature.  It  admits  that  all  our  in- 
terpretations of  natural  fact  are  more  or  less  im- 
perfect and  symbolic,  and  bids  the  learner  seek 
for  truth  not  among  words  but  among  things. 
It  warns  us  that  the  assertion  which  outstrips 
evidence  is  not  only  a  blunder  but  a  crime. 

The  purely  classical  education  advocated  by 
the  representatives  of  the  Humanists  in  our  day, 
gives  no  inkling  of  all  this.  A  man  may  be  a 
better  scholar  than  Erasmus,  and  know  no  more 
of  the  chief  causes  of  the  present  intellectual 
fermentation  than  Erasmus  did.  Scholarly  and 
pious  persons,  worthy  of  all  respect,  favour  us 
with  allocutions  upon  the  sadness  of  the  antago- 
nism of  science  to  their  mediaeval  way  of  thinking, 
which  betray  an  ignorance  of  the  first  principles 
of  scientific  investigation,  an  incapacity  for  under- 
standing what  a  man  of  science  means  by  verac- 
ity, and  an  unconsciousness  of  the  weight  of  es- 
177 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

tablished  scientific  truths,  which  is  ahnost  comi- 
cal. 

There  is  no  great  force  in  the  tu  quoque  [thou 
too]  argument,  or  else  the  advocates  of  scientific 
education  might  fairly  enough  retort  upon  the 
modern  Humanists  that  they  may  be  learned 
specialists,  but  that  they  possess  no  such  sound 
foundation  for  a  criticism  of  life  as  deserves  the 
name  of  culture.  And,  indeed,  if  we  were  dis- 
posed to  be  cruel,  we  might  urge  that  the  Human- 
ists have  brought  this  reproach  upon  them- 
selves, not  because  they  are  too  full  of  the  spirit 
of  the  ancient  Greek,  but  because  they  lack  it. 

The  period  of  the  Renascence  is  commonly 
called  that  of  the  "  Revival  of  Letters,  "  as  if  the 
influences  then  brought  to  bear  upon  the  mind  of 
Western  Europe  had  been  wholly  exhausted  in 
the  field  of  literature.  I  think  it  is  very  com- 
monly forgotten  that  the  revival  of  science, 
effected  by  the  same  agency,  although  less  con- 
spicuous, was  not  less  momentous. 

In  fact,  the  few  and  scattered  students  of 
nature  of  that  day  picked  up  the  clue  to  her 
secrets  exactly  as  it  fell  from  the  hands  of  the 
Greeks  a  thousand  years  before.  The  founda- 
tions of  mathematics  were  so  well  laid  by  them, 
that  our  children  learn  their  geometry  from  a 
book  written  for  the  schools  of  Alexandria  two 
thousand  years  ago.  Modem  astronomy  is  the 
natural  continuation  and  development  of  the 
work  of  Hipparchus  and  of  Ptolemy;  modern 
physics  of  that  of  Democritus  and  of  Archimedes; 
178 


Science   and   Culture 

It  was  long  before  modem  biological  science  out- 
grew the  knowledge  bequeathed  to  us  by  Aris- 
totle, by  Theophrastus,  and  by  Galen. 

We  cannot  know  all  the  best  thoughts  and 
sayings  of  the  Greeks  unless  we  know  what  they 
thought  about  natural  phenomena.  We  cannot 
fully  apprehend  their  criticism  of  life  unless  we 
understand  the  extent  to  which  that  criticism 
'was  affected  by  scientific  conceptions.  We 
falsely  pretend  to  be  the  inheritors  of  their  cul- 
ture, unless  we  are  penetrated,  as  the  best  minds 
among  them  were,  with  an  unhesitating  faith 
that  the  free  employment  of  reason,  in  accord- 
ance with  scientific  methods,  is  the  sole  method  of 
reaching  truth. 

Thus  I  venture  to  think  that  the  pretensions  of 
our  modem  Humanists  to  the  possession  of  the 
monopoly  of  culture  and  to  the  exclusive  inherit- 
ance of  the  spirit  of  antiquity  must  be  abated,  if 
not  abandoned.  But  I  should  be  very  sorry  that 
anything  I  have  said  should  be  taken  to  imply  a 
desire  on  my  part  to  depreciate  the  value  of  classi- 
cal education,  as  it  might  be  and  as  it  some- 
times is.  The  native  capacities  of  mankind  vary 
no  less  than  their  opportunities;  and  while  cul- 
ture is  one,  the  road  by  which  one  man  may  best 
reach  it  is  widely  different  from  that  which  is 
most  advantageous  to  another.  Again,  while 
scientific  education  is  5'et  inchoate  and  tentative, 
classical  education  is  thoroughly  well  organized 
upon  the  practical  experience  of  generations  of 
teachers. 

179 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

I  am  the  last  person  to  question  the  importance 
of  genuine  literary  education,  or  to  suppose  that 
intellectual  culture  can  be  complete  without  it. 
An  exclusively  scientific  training  will  bring  about 
a  mental  twist  as  surely  as  an  exclusively  literary 
training.  The  value  of  the  cargo  does  not  com- 
pensate for  a  ship's  being  out  of  trim;  and  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  think  that  the  Scientific 
College  would  turn  out  none  but  lop-sided  men. 

There  is  no  need,  however,  that  such  a  catas- 
trophe should  happen.  Instruction  in  English, 
French,  and  German  is  provided,  and  thus  the 
three  greatest  literatures  of  the  modem  world  are 
made  accessible  to  the  student. 

French  and  German,  and.  especially  the  latter 
language,  are  absolutely  indispensable  to  those 
who  desire  full  knowledge  in  an}^  department  of 
science.  But  even  supposing  that  the  knowledge 
of  these  languages  acquired  is  not  more  than 
sufficient  for  purely  scientific  purposes,  every 
Englishman  has,  in  his  native  tongue,  an  almost 
perfect  instrument  of  literary  expression;  and,  in 
his  own  literature,  models  of  every  kind  of  liter- 
ary excellence.  If  an  Englishman  cannot  get 
literary  culture  out  of  his  Bible,  his  Shakespeare, 
his  Milton,  neither,  in  my  belief,  will  the  pro- 
foundest  study  of  Homer  and  Sophocles,  Virgil 
and  Horace,  give  it  to  him. 

Thus,    since   the    constitution   of  the    College 
makes  sufficient  provision  for  literary  as  well  as 
for  scientific  education,  and  since  artistic  instruc- 
tion is  also  contemplated,  it  seems  to  me  that  a 
180 


Science   and  Culture 

fairly  complete  culture  is  offered  to  all  who  are 
willing  to  take  advantage  of  it. 

But  I  am  not  sure  that  at  this  point  the  "  prac- 
tical" man,  scotched  but  not  slain,  may  ask 
what  all  this  talk  about  culture  has  to  do  with 
an  Institution,  the  object  of  which  is  defined  to 
be  "to  promote  the  prosperity  of  the  manufac- 
tures and  the  industry  of  the  country.  "  He  may 
suggest  that  what  is  wanted  for  this  end  is  not 
culture,  nor  even  a  purely  scientific  discipline, 
but  simply  a  knowledge  of  applied  science, 

I  often  wish  that  this  phrase,"  applied  science," 
had  never  been  invented.  For  it  suggests  that 
there  is  a  sort  of  scientific  knowledge  of 
direct  practical  use,  which  can  be  studied  apart 
from  another  sort  of  scientific  knowledge,  which 
is  of  no  practical  utility,  and  which  is  termed 
"pure  science. "  But  there  is  no  more  complete 
fallacy  than  this.  What  people  call  applied 
science  is  nothing  but  the  application  of  pure 
science  to  particular  classes  of  problems.  It 
consists  of  deductions  from  those  general  princi- 
ples, established  by  reasoning  and  obser^-ation, 
which  constitute  pure  science.  No  one  can  safely 
make  these  deductions  until  he  has  a  firm  grasp 
of  the  principles;  and  he  can  obtain  that  grasp 
only  by  personal  experience  of  the  operations 
of  observation  and  of  reasoning  on  which  they 
are  founded. 

Almost  all  the  processes  employed  in  the  arts 
and  manufactures  fall  within  the  range  either  of 
physics  or  of  chemistry.  In  order  to  improve 
181 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

them,  one  must  thoroughly  understand  them; 
and  no  one  has  a  chance  of  really  understanding 
them,  unless  he  has  obtained  that  master>^  of 
principles  and  that  habit  of  dealing  with  facts, 
which  is  given  by  long-continued  and  well-direc- 
ted purely  scientific  training  in  the  physical  and 
the  chemical  laboratory.  So  that  there  really  is 
no  question  as  to  the  necessity  of  purely  scientific 
discipline,  even  if  the  work  of  the  College  were 
limited  b}^  the  narrowest  interpretation  of  its 
stated  aims. 

And,  as  to  the  desirableness  of  a  wider  culttire 
than  that  3'ielded  by  science  alone,  it  is  to  be 
recollected  that  the  improvement  of  manufac- 
turing processes  is  only  one  of  the  conditions 
which  contribute  to  the  prosperity  of  industrv^ 
Industry  is  a  means  and  not  an  end;  and  mankind 
work  onl}^  to  get  something  which  they  want. 
What  that  something  is  depends  partly  on  their 
innate,  and  partly  on  their  acquired,  desires. 

If  the  wealth  resulting  from  prosperous  indus- 
tn,'  is  to  be  spent  upon  the  gratification  of  un- 
worthy desires,  if  the  increasing  perfection  of 
manufacturing  processes  is  to  be  accompanied  by 
an  increasing  debasement  of  those  who  carry 
them  on,  I  do  not  see  the  good  of  industry  and 
prosperity. 

Now  it  is  perfectly  true  that  men's  views  of 
what  is  desirable  depend  upon  their  characters; 
and  that  the  innate  proclivities  to  which  we  give 
that  name  are  not  touched  by  an}^  amount  of  in- 
struction. But  it  does  not  follow  that  even  mere 
182 


Science  and  Culture 

intellectual  education  may  not,  to  an  indefinite 
extent,  modify  the  practical  manifestation  of  the 
characters  of  men  in  their  actions,  by  supplying 
them  with  motives  unknown  to  the  ignorant.  A 
pleasure-loving  character  will  have  pleasure  of 
some  sort ;  but,  if  you  give  him  the  choice,  he  may 
prefer  pleasures  which  do  not  degrade  him  to  those 
which  do.  And  this  choice  is  offered  to  every 
man,  who  possesses  in  literary  or  artistic  culture  a 
never-failing  source  of  pleasures,  which  are  neither 
withered  by  age,  nor  staled  by  custom,  nor  embit- 
tered in  the  recollection  by  the  pangs  of  self- 
reproach. 

If  the  Institution  opened  to-day  fulfils  the 
intention  of  its  founder,  the  picked  intelligences 
among  all  classes  of  the  population  of  this  district 
will  pass  through  it.  No  child  bom  in  Birming- 
ham, hencefoni\^ard,  if  he  have  the  capacity  to 
profit  by  the  opportunities  offered  to  him,  first  in 
the  primary  and  other  schools,  and  afterwards  in 
the  Scientific  College,  need  fail  to  obtain,  not 
merely  the  instruction,  but  the  culture  most 
appropriate  to  the  conditions  of  his  life. 

Within  these  walls,  the  future  employer  and 
the  future  artisan  may  sojourn  together  for  a 
while,  and  carry,  through  all  their  lives,  the  stamp 
of  the  influences  then  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 
Hence,  it  is  not  beside  the  mark  to  remind  you 
that  the  prosperity  of  industry-  depends  not 
merely  upon  the  improvement  of  manufacturing 
processes,  not  merely  upon  the  ennobling  of  the 
individual  character,  but  upon  a  third  condition, 
183 


Masterpieces   of   Science 

namely,  a  clear  understanding  of  the  conditions 
of  social  life,  on  the  part  of  both  the  capitalist  and 
the  operative,  and  their  agreement  upon  common 
principles  of  social  action.  They  mtist  learn  that 
social  phenomena  are  as  much  the  expression  of 
natural  laws  as  any  others;  that  no  social  arrange- 
ments can  be  permanent  tmless  they  harmonize 
with  the  requirements  of  social  statics  and  dy- 
namics; and  that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  there 
is  an  arbiter  whose  decisions  execute  themselves. 
But  this  knowledge  is  only  to  be  obtained  by 
the  application  of  the  methods  of  investigation 
adopted  in  physical  researches  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  societ3^  Hence,  I 
confess,  I  should  like  to  see  one  addition  made  to 
the  excellent  scheme  of  education  propounded 
for  the  College,  in  the  shape  of  provision  for  the 
teaching  of  Sociolog}\  For  though  we  are  all 
agreed  that  party  politics  are  to  have  no  place  in 
the  instruction  of  the  College;  yet  in  this  country-, 
practically  governed  as  it  is  now  by  universal 
suffrage,  every  man  who  does  his  duty  must  ex- 
ercise political  functions.  And,  if  the  evils  which 
are  inseparable  from  the  good  of  political  liberty 
are  to  be  checked,  if  the  perpetual  oscillation  of 
nations  between  anarchy  and  despotism  is  to  be 
replaced  by  the  steady  march  of  self-restraining 
freedom;  it  will  be  because  men  will  gradually 
bring  themselves  to  deal  with  political,  as  they 
now  deal  with  scientific  questions;  to  be  as 
ashamed  of  undue  haste  and  partisan  preju- 
dice in  the  one  case  as  the  other;  and  to 
184 


Science   and   Culture 

believe  that  the  machinery  of  society  is  at 
least  as  delicate  as  that  of  a  spinning  jenny, 
and  as  little  likely  to  be  improved  by  the  med- 
dling of  those  who  have  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  master  the  principles  of  its  action. 


185 


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